‘Ystervarkies’ (Lamingtons)

Although lamingtons appear to have originated in Australia, they are also a popular delicacy in New Zealand and South Africa. In South Africa, however we don’t call them lamingtons, but rather ‘ystervarkies’.

Why is it called ‘ystervarkies’?

‘Ystervarkies’ is the Afrikaans word for ‘hedgehog’. The coconut gives this treat the same appearance as a hedgehog, hence the name. (Read my final thought on this at the end of this post).

Last week it was my turn to take cake to our Sunday church service and I decided to bake ystervarkies. It’s not difficult at all, maybe a little time consuming, but when you put the first little square in your mouth, you’ll be glad you made the effort.

Put it on the table:

  • First, I’m going to show the step by step method of baking the vanilla cake,
  • Then we’re going to quickly make the chocolate syrup,
  • And lastly, I’m going to demonstrate how to roll the ystervarkie in chocolate and coconut without making a mess.

Vanilla Cake:

Ingredients for the vanilla cake

300ml (200g) cake flour

15ml (1 tablespoon) baking powder

1,25ml (¼ teaspoon) salt

3 eggs

250ml (210g) sugar

3.75ml (¾ teaspoon) vanilla essence

60ml (¼ cup) oil

160ml (⅔ cup) milk – boiling

Preheat the oven to 180°C/356°F and grease an ovenproof dish or cake pan (23cm x 23cm) with butter.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt

Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.

Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla essence

Fold flour mixture into egg mixture and mix well.

Combine flour- and egg mixture

Stir oil into boiling milk. Mix milk mixture into batter.

Mix milk and oil and add to batter

Spoon batter into ovenproof dish (or cake pan) and bake for 25 minutes until done.

Cake mixture ready for the oven

Tip: Let the cake cool completely – I left it overnight on the kitchen table. This way, the cake does not crumble when it is cut and dipped in the chocolate syrup.

Baked vanilla cake

Chocolate Syrup:

Ingredients for chocolate syrup

375ml (1½ cups) water

750ml (630g) sugar

2.5ml (½ teaspoon) salt

5ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla essence

60ml (¼ cup) cocoa

5ml (1 teaspoon) cream of tartar

15ml (1 tablespoon) butter

2 cups coconut

Mix water, sugar, salt, vanilla essence and cocoa in a heavy-based saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly and cook for two minutes on moderate heat.

Cook water, sugar, salt, vanilla essence and cocoa

Add butter and cream of tartar and stir until butter is melted. Chill in the fridge until cold.

Add butter and cream of tartar

Tip: I left the chocolate syrup in the fridge overnight and took it out 5 minutes before I needed it.

Chocolate syrup

The next morning, Berto cut the cake into equal sized squares (I asked him to do this because he is very precise when it comes to such things – he even took out his tape measure before he started cutting).

Cutting the cake into squares

How to not make a mess:

In order not to have fingers full of chocolate sauce and coconut, I used two sets of forks to dip the squares in the sauce and then roll them in the coconut. I also had a bowl of water on hand to rinse the forks after each square before starting with the next one.

First dip the square in the chocolate sauce

And then roll the square in a thick layer of coconut

We are ready for church

It looks just like a curled-up hedgehog (‘ystervarkie’)

My only problem with this recipe is that I didn’t double the batter because the bowl came back from church without even a crumb. But luckily Berto ‘hid’ one ystervarkie in the fridge that I didn’t know about. Yummy!

The very last ystervarkie

Back to the name ‘ystervarkie’. After thinking about this more, I realised the following:

Hedgehog = ‘krimpvarkie’ in Afrikaans

Porcupine = ‘ystervarkie’ in Afrikaans

So, this treat should actually be called a ‘krimpvarkie’! Ohh … well, since a hedgehog and porcupine are basically related, I assume it doesn’t really matter.