Churros

Churros, what a treat! If only I had come across a churros recipe before, we would have adopted this staple a long time ago in our home.

In Australia, you can find churros at some specialised cafe. It will cost you an arm and a leg. My advice: make them home, it is really simple and super cheap! Churros originate somewhere in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain & Portugal).  They were brought in every port around the world by the Spanish.

Churros are made from a dough made over the stove consisting essentially of water, butter, egg and flour. The making bears strong similarity to choux pastry, however requires less elbow oil! Churros dough is then put in a piping bag with a star tip at the bottom. A good squeeze and hop it goes in the oil for cooking!

You can use a deep fry pan if you do not have an oil deep fryer.  I got mine, which is quite small, some years ago from Aldi.  It is fine for a small family.

This recipe is adapted from Cooking Classy, a US food blogger.

Makes the quantity on the photo, about 15.

Ingredients:

• 250 mL of water (1 cup)
• 55 g  of unsalted butter, diced into small cubes (tip: if you only have salted butter, this is fine, just omit the salt)
• 1 tbsp of white sugar
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 150 g of plain flour (1 cup)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

You will also need:

• A star shape piping tip, piping bag and coupler
  Note: you can do without the coupler if using a plastic disposable bag, you may have to reset your bag a few times. The dough is quite stiff and under the pushing pressure the bag tends to pop out or break.  I now use the coupler. 
• Vegetable oil, for frying (I use sunflower oil, it is more suited for high temperature)
• Icing sugar (about 50 g)
• 1/4 tsp of cinnamon powder
• 60 g of dark chocolate to be melted with 2 tbsp of milk and 15 g of butter

Method:

1. Place the butter, salt, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir in the vanilla extract.
2. Remove from the heat and add the flour all at once . You should use a wooden spoon here.  Mix until a tough dough is formed.  Allow to cool down for 5 minutes or so (to avoid the egg cooking directly when adding it).
3. Add the egg and mix well with a wooden soon until fully absorbed.
4. Heat up your deep fryer or vegetable oil in a thick bottom based deep frypan or saucepan.
   Tip: If not using a fryer, you will know the oil is ready if you insert a drop of dough in it and it starts sizzling around it. 
5. Place your dough in a piping bag.  Start piping over the workbench and transferring to the oil or piping straight in the oil (whichever you feel safe doing) length of dough 10 cm long or so.  Some will bend naturally when falling over the previous ones.   You will certainly need two to three batches of frying to avoid the pieces stuck on each others.
6. When the right colour is obtained remove from the oil and drain on paper towels.
7. Mix the icing sugar and cinnamon together, either use a small mesh colander to dust over the churros or toss the whole in a large bowl.
8. Serve with the hot chocolate sauce.