little homemade churros

I learned to fully appreciate churros at a restaurant in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico aptly named Chocolate y Churros.  You ordered your preferred flavor of hot chocolate (Mexican, milk, dark, spicy, etc) and they brought it to you, thick and chocolatey, in a deep mug along with three churros fresh from the fryer.  Hea-ven. I’ve tried churros since, here and there at a fair or boardwalk and they’ve never lived up to memory.  Churros, like donuts, I decided, must be eaten minutes minutes out the hot oil to live up their full delicious potential.  Here’s how to make them yourselves:

Ingredients:

dough:

2 tbsp. unsalted butter

2 tbsp. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1 cup plus 2 tbsp. all purpose flour

2 large eggs

1-2 quarts vegetable oil for frying

cinnamon sugar:

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1.) The churro dough is basically a pâte á choux, which is the same type of dough used to make many pastries- it sounds tricky to make, but don’t worry, it isn’t! Whisk together the butter, sugar, salt and 1 1/4 cups water in a pot over a medium heat.  Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring consistently until butter is melted.  Remove the pot from the heat and mix in the flour, incorporating fully before returning the pot to the heat.  Continue to stir until the mixture is smooth and sticky (about 1 minute).  Remove pot from heat and cover, letting the dough rest for 15 minutes.

2.) While your dough is resting, fill a heavy pot with about three inches of oil and begin to heat.  Near where you are going to fry your churros, set up a cookie sheet covered with paper towels or empty egg cartons to place the churros right after they come out of the hot oil.  Also, mix together your cinnamon sugar.

3.) After resting, add the eggs 1 at a time, stirring by hand or with in a mixer until completely combined after each addition.  Spoon finished dough into a pastry bag with a star tip.

4.) To fry the churros, squeeze the batter into your hot oil (about 350°) and use a knife or scissors to cut the end off from the pastry bag.  I would recommend starting with one tester churro to make sure the oil is the right temp and so you can see how long they take to cook.  Otherwise, you can fry multiple churros at a time, just make sure not to add so many that they stick together in the pan.  It’s important to turn and move churros in the pan while frying so they don’t brown too much on one side.  Once they’re golden brown and cooked in the middle, place on your drying tray and start frying your next batch.

5.) After churros are fried and not too hot to touch, coat them with cinnamon sugar- don’t wait too long or the sugar won’t stick as well!  Enjoy with your hot chocolate of choice!

xoxo, Keya