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Hertzog Cookie

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Hertzog Cookie Recipe  

A Hertzoggie, also known in Afrikaans as a Hertzogkoekie or in English as a Hertzog Cookie, is a jam-filled tartlet or cookie with a coconut topping commonly served on a cup-like pastry base.

Ingredients:

  1. 250 g butter OR Stork Bake
  2. 1 egg
  3. 250 ml of sugar
  4. ± 3 cups cake flour (500g)
  5. 10 ml baking powder
  6. 5ml vanilla essence
  7. 15 ml (one tablespoon) oil

Coconut filling

  1. 1 tablespoon butter
  2. 1 cup coconut
  3. ½ sugar
  4. 2 sticks cinnamon and 2 whole Elachi (cardamon)
  5. A pinch of fine Elachi
  6. ½ cup of water
  7. Add all together in a small pot and cook until all water is cooked away on slow heat.

 

Hertzog Cookie

Method:

Dough

  • Cream butter and sugar
  • Add oil, essence, and egg.
  • Sift flour & baking powder
  • Mix to form a firm dough
  • Use a fluted cookie cutter & place in greased patty pans.
  • Spoon 1 teaspoon of coconut filling into half of each cup
  • Bake 180 C for 15-20 min until golden brown
  • Remove from oven

Once cooled spoon the apricot jam and then top with the coconut filling.
Makes 40

Some history and background

The tartlet is named after the early 20th-century South African politician, Prime Minister (1924–1939), and Boer War General J. B. M. Hertzog. The Hertzogkoekies are thought to have been a favorite of his.  Hertzog’s supporters were known to have baked, served, and sold them to show their political support.

One story of the origin of the dessert states that it was invented by the Cape-Malay community to demonstrate their support for Hertzog after he promised to give women the vote and equal rights to the colored community in the 1920s. After fulfilling the first promise to give women the vote in 1930, but not the second, the community began baking the cookies with a brown and pink icing called “twee gevreetjie” (Afrikaans for “hypocrite”), showing their dissatisfaction with him.

Another possible source of the dessert’s origin is the Afrikaans practice following the Second Anglo-Boer War to name confections after national heroes.

Prepared, tried, and tested Feriel Sonday

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