From my early teen days I have had "ants in my pants", as my father called it. As I grew older my friends dubbed it the "1000-miles blues" — which translated means I often feel the need to get into a car and just drive, destination unknown and totally unimportant…

When I was footloose and fancy free it was a fairly harmless 'disease' but as I grew older and became enmeshed in relationships, wives, families, jobs, mortgages and responsibilities, it became more and more difficult to indulge this craving.

But, thanks to an understanding wife and my 'other life' job of writing about motor cars, I still manage to break away for a day or two, three, every now and then.

And it was on one of my recent 'trips' that I ended up driving into Bredasdorp from the Swellendam side — and that's what all of this preamble has to do with Aunt Hilda's dumplings because the memories suddenly came back of a cosy winter kitchen in a small house near the Bredasdorp station where on rainy winter's evenings she used to produce the most magnificent syrupy, cinnamon dumplings I have tasted — to this day.

So back home the search was on because I had a huge craving for old fashioned sweet dumplings. Not much joy on the internet, I eventually found an old recipe book produced by the SABC programme Woman's World in 1989 — and that is where today's recipe for old fashioned 'Souskluitjies' comes from.

For 4 servings you need:

  • 1 cup flour

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

  • Pinch of salt

  • 1 tablespoon butter

  • 2 eggs beaten

  • ½ cup milk

  • Cinnamon and sugar

    • Note: The quantities of cinnamon and sugar are not mentioned, but 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon powder, mixed, should do the trick.

    For the syrup:

  • ½ cup water

  • ½ cup golden syrup or sugar

  • 1 tablespoon butter

  • 2 cloves

  • 1 tablespoon sweet sherry

    • Instructions:

    For the dumplings, stir the dry ingredients together and rub in the butter, mix well with the beaten eggs and milk (this can all be done in a processor).

    Submerge teaspoons of the mixture into boiling, lightly salted water.

    Cover the pot and simmer the dumplings gently for 15 minutes.

    Remove dumplings with a slotted spoon, drain and place in an ovenproof dish.

    Sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and keep warm.

    For the syrup:

    Use water from cooking the dumplings and boil the syrup ingredients until the sugar has dissolved.

    Pour syrup over the dumplings.

    Place in low oven to keep warm until needed.