Crunchies are another traditional South African tea time treat. These take me back to my childhood and fond memories of when we visited my grandpa. His wife, aunty Magda used to make the most delicious, golden crunchies as a treat and we would end up taking more than just one. I remember her crunchies were golden and crisp on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. Not too sweet, just perfect.
To make the most of our time during South Africa’s lockdown due to COVID-19, the girls and I decided to bake some crunchies. This was also the perfect strategy to get Mika to eat oats as she is not very fond of it. We deviated from the traditional crunchie recipe by adding lemon zest and pecan nuts to ours. The lemon zest brings out the flavours and it breaks the sweetness of the crunchies. The nuts just give it that extra bit of crunch.
Once these little crisp and golden squares cooled down it disappeared out of the cookie jar one by one. And Mika… well she found it irresistible and completely forgot that it contained oats.
So here is my recipe for these delicious golden crunchies.
Delicious Golden Crunchies
Crisp, soft and chewy crunchies
Baking time: 25 min
Ingredients
1 cup cake flour
a pinch of salt
2 cups raw oats
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 tsp lemon zest
½ cup pecan nuts (chopped)
225g butter
15ml golden syrup
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Dark or milk chocolate for drizzle
Directions
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a baking pan of about 30 x 20cm.
Mix the flour, salt, oats, coconut, lemon zest and nuts together.
Melt the butter, golden syrup and brown sugar together in a saucepan. Stirring it in order for the sugar to dissolve.
Remove from the heat and add the bicarbonate of soda.
Add the syrup mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Pour mixture into the baking pan and press it down evenly with your palm.
Bake for 25 minutes.
It should be golden brown when you remove it from the oven.
Allow to cool.
For melted chocolate – melt chocolate on a double boiler with a teaspoon of milk.
Drizzle melted chocolate over cooled crunchies.
Once chocolate is set, then slice it into squares.
