Meet South Africa’s koeksister family: Arno and the Arpins

He’s been catcalled by lustful ladies in fast cars for having the sexiest legs on the streets. He’s been scammed and mocked and robbed. He’s as steadfast in the sweltering Cape Town summer as he is in the Mother City’s weeklong winter downpours. For Arno Arpin, it’s all in a day’s work; selling their family-recipe koeksisters at the traffic lights on the corner of Nathan Mallach and Giel Basson – a duty he’s been doing diligently for almost three decades. 

Arno Arpin and his family have a no-nonsense policy when it comes to koeksisters. Together, they have mastered the threshold to where these golden braids must be fried to ensure ultimate crispiness – 12 minutes, exactly. He has perfected the density of the syrup in which the hot braided morsels are dunked. But more than that, Arno Arpin and his family have conquered consistency. They have been doing this for 29 years... and counting.  

“Dedication. That’s the secret,” Arno says. “I am dedicated to creating the best koeksisters, every time. I have been for 29 years. I don’t want to make the second-best koeksisters in the country. I want to make the best and I give my everything, every day to achieve that. That is what my customers have grown used to,” he says. “I’m a real pain when it comes to koeksisters…”

Arno and his wife Hannelie live in Goodwood with their daughter Madeleine and young grandson, Hanno. It may seem like a normal suburban household, but when the rest of the northern suburbs are getting in their eight hours, the Arpins are all systems go – kneading and frying and dunking and packing.



“It’s better to bake at night,” Arno tells me. “There are no telephones ringing or anything else to bother you. It’s cooler too, which is good when you have to fry hundreds of koeksisters. I have a youngster helping me out in the afternoons; Eugene Booysen from Lotus River is my left- and right-hand man. He helps with the clearing and prep work, and at about 4pm every day, his work is done. Then it’s up to Madeleine and me.

“We go to bed quite early – around 9pm – and then get up to bake in the early hours. Madeleine helps me while I teach her to fry and plait and soak and pack. We operate until sunrise and then have a nap again from about 8am to 10am in the morning. At around 11am, I hit the road.”

Loyalists would know the well-rehearsed mantra of Arno, clad in a bright red shirt and wide-rimmed white umpires’ hat, walking up and down between cars at the intersection of Barons N1 City; “R40 a bag. R40 a dozen!” 

“I only return home once I sell out,” Arno says. “Sometimes it’s early afternoon, other days it’s well past five. But everything must sell out, every day. While I’m selling, Hannelie handles all the admin and buying and deliveries to big buyers.”

The later in the week, the earlier Arno and Madeleine have to get up to bake bigger batches. Apparently, demand increases exponentially as nobly-founded Monday diets go out the door – and koeksisters come in through the car window – by Thursday or Friday.

“By Sunday, I sell out before 12 (noon), just as church comes out. Sundays are the best sellers because people are out for a treat,” Arno says.   

Even though no one in the Arpin household gets particularly excited about eating a koeksister any more, the business of baking them is shaping up to be a generational relay. The original recipe and secret methods were taught to Hannelie by her late aunt Koba Rademeyer, and she later taught Arno the same skills.

“I’m teaching Madeleine at the moment,” Arno says. “She’s still learning... There are no shortcuts with a koeksister. If the shortcut was any good, there wouldn’t be a long way! But the long way is the only way.”

Even the nine-year-old youngster, Hanno, wants in on the action.

“He now wants to help me plait the dough,” Arno says, proudly. “He said at school the other day he wants to be as famous as his grandpa for his koeksisters.”

The Arpin’s constant ambition for “the world’s best koeksisters” has gained them lofty praise, including a stint at a 1994 presidential dinner where late President Nelson Mandela remarked to the head caterer how delicious the koeksisters were.

“We baked those,” Arno proudly asserts. “I remember the order: 35 dozen cocktail koeksisters; 89 countries present and the President complimented our koeksisters.” 

“We also baked thousands of koeksisters for the 1995 Rugby World Cup celebrations and official ceremonies. At one event for the Australian rugby team, they stacked the mini koeksisters around a cone – like a croquembouche.”

Before the break of dawn at the Arpin residence in Goodwood. Hundreds of koeksisters for the day waiting to be packaged. (Photo: Arno Arpin)

The photograph that sparked an outpour of good wishes and new business for Arpin Koeksisters, taken shortly after the national lockdown by a concerned passer-by. Helet-Mari Young says she has since grown to be a part of the Arpin family. (Photo: Helet-Mari Young)