Hertzoggie Cookies

Have you ever tried hertzoggie cookies? This is as South African as you can get!! Of course along with malva pudding http://www.livingdelish.com/malva-pudding/ these makes a great traditional treat.
To sum Hertzoggie cookies up, they are a kind of jam, coconut meringue, tart like cookie. They go great with an afternoon tea or simply as a treat.

Although they look complicated and time consuming to make, they will pleasantly surprise you. This is a simple and easy to follow recipe. I have never had this recipe fail me.

Where does hertzoggie cookies come from?

They are an old South African treat. Dating back to the 1924 and named after General Hertzog, who was the prime minister in South Africa during this time. It’s said that this was his absolute favorite cookie.

Way back when, they were filled with homemade apricot jam. But today we are spoiled with delicious choices of store bought jams. This certainly speeds things up when making them.

Tips to create the best hertzoggie cookie…

When making these cookies, make sure to grease your muffin tins extremely good. You do not want them to get stuck in your pan.

Also do not over fill them with jam, even if the temptation is big. If you are using a small muffin tin, 1/4 teaspoon of jam will be enough. If you are baking larger ones in a standard muffin tin, you can use 1/2 a teaspoon of jam. Adding to much jam will make these cookies very sweet and you stand the chance of the jam leaking out of the cookie shell.

Neatly add the jam in the centre of your pastry shells, ensuring that the jam does not touch the sides of the pan. If this happens your little hertzoggie cookies will definitely get stuck on the side of your pan.

This recipe makes around 30 little tart cookies if using a small muffin tin. If you are making larger ones in a standard muffin tin you will get around 15 or so out.

Preheat your fan assisted oven to 180˚C
Grease a muffin tin. Make sure to grease the tin very good, and set aside.

Ingredients:

Crust:

450 ml Cake flour
35 ml Caster sugar
10 ml baking powder
1 ml salt
125g butter, soften
20 ml water
3 egg yolks

Filling:

+/- 60 ml apricot jam
3 egg whites
300 ml white sugar
500 ml shredded coconut

Start making the crust.
Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Add the caster sugar and butter. Start to rub the butter into your flour mixture using your finger tips. Keep doing this until all the butter is worked in and the mixture looks like bread crumbs.
You can use an electric mixer for this if you want to. Make sure to mix slowly until the dough looks like bread crumbs.
Mix your egg yolks and water together until just combined. Now add the fluid bit by bit to your flour mixture while you kneading it. Keep mixing until a soft dough has formed. If your dough is to stiff add a little water to soften it up.

Lightly dust your table surface with some flour. Roll out the dough to about 1/2 cm thickness. Cut out round circles, and lay them inside your prepared muffin tins. Use your fingers a slightly push the dough into place, lining each muffin tin hole. Let the dough go up 1 cm on the sides of the muffin tin hole. This will form a small tart like looking shell.

Now you can start with the filling.
Add 1/4 teaspoon of apricot jam to each tart shell. Make sure you add them in the centre of each tart shell.
Mix the eggs whites until it has reached hard peak. Add in sugar bit by bit while mixing. Stir in the shredded coconut.