These traditional little South African teatime treats were named after General Herzog who was South Africa’s president from 1924 – 1939. Apparently they were his favourite. He was not a very nice man but that is not the fault of the tartlets, which were a big favourite of mine growing up. I could never resist them when my mom made them. They are probably a little bit more challenging than some of my usual recipes since you have to make pastry and meringue but they’re well worth it.
Herzoggies
For the pastry
2/3 cup self-raising flour
50ml caster sugar
1/3 teaspoon baking powder
30g butter
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon cold water
Pinch of salt
For the filling
50 – 75ml good quality apricot jam
For the meringue
2 egg whites
1/3 cup caster sugar
2/3 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
Preheat your oven to 180 C and grease a shallow 12 hole muffin tin.
To make the pastry sift together the flour, caster sugar, baking powder and salt. Rub in the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the egg yolks and water and knead until it comes together into a ball. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Roll out the dough to 5mm thickness and cut out 12 rounds using a cookie cutter. Place each round into the muffin tin and press down. Put a couple of teaspoons of jam into each pastry round. Do not overfill or the jam will cook out.
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the sugar a little at a time beating continuously throughout. Fold in the coconut and vanilla essence. Spoon the meringue over the jam on each tarlet and make sure the jam is covered. You may have a little extra meringue so don’t overfill.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until the topping has turned golden brown. Allow to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.
Makes 12 tartlets
abbiosbiston 
These look delicious!
When I was growing up and my mom made them we used to eat all of them before they even got cold.
YESSSSSSSSSS now I have your recipe. Sooooon….
Let me know how they turn out. Coconut and apricot jam is a combo made in heaven.
It really is (strangely). Hmmm.
I went to the little tuisbedryf thing and they had none this week 😦 I am hunting incessantly.
OMG. These look delicious!
They were an absolute favourite in my house growing up.
I can totally see why.
That looks incredible! I have never had South African food, looks great.
South African food is really eclectic because there are so many cultures but it’s always delicious because the quality of the ingredients is so good.
Looks interesting, I’m glad to have stumbled upon this post …I’d like to try this!
Abbi – is ‘caster sugar’ the same as ‘powdered sugar’? And do you think it would make a too big difference if I used some other type? I’m considering brown or unrefined.
Thanks!
Hi Elli. I’ve checked and the US equivalent of caster sugar is “superfine sugar”. It’s a finer version of regular sugar. For the pastry unrefined sugar will probably be fine but I wouldn’t recommend it for the meringue as the texture is very different. Let me know how it turns out.