Churros will always remind me of being on holiday. Every time we go to Spain, the trip isn’t complete without multiple trips to a churrería for fresh hot churros, chunky and crisp, and dipped in a rich chocolate sauce.
Like doughnuts, I don’t make these very often because…deep frying. I find it a lot of effort to heat up a whole saucepan of oil and it can get a little messy to clear up. But given everything that’s gone on the past two years, I wasn’t able to go away on holiday for a while so I decided to bring the holiday vibes home!
Serves: 3-4 for sharing
Prep time: 5 minutes + 10 minutes cooling
Cook time: 20 minutes
Photography & styling: Benjamina Ebuehi
Season: Year Round
Ingredients
Cinnamon Sugar:
150g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Churros:
200ml water
75g salted butter
2 tsp sugar
150g plain flour
3 large eggs
Approx 1 litre vegetable oil to deep fry
Dulce de leche or caramel, to serve
Method
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Make the cinnamon sugar by mixing together the sugar and cinnamon in a large shallow dish and set aside.
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Heat the water, butter and 2 tsp of sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. Pour in the flour all at once whilst stirring continuously. It will start out quite lumpy but keep stirring until it forms a thick smooth ball of dough. Reduce the heat to low and continue to cook the dough for a further minute, stirring all the time.
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Remove from the heat and transfer the dough to a clean bowl and allow to cool for for 5-10 minutes. Mix in the eggs one at a time making sure each one incorporates fully before adding in the next. The dough will look a little lumpy as the eggs go in but keep mixing! You can use a stand mixer or electric whisk to speed this up.
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Add enough oil to a deep medium saucepan so you have about 4-5 inches of oil. Heat the oil over medium-high heat until it reaches a temperature of 170C. (If you don’t have a thermometer test a little bit of the churro dough – it should sizzle and float quite quickly and take about 30 seconds to 1 minute to brown. If it darkens quickly but is still raw in the middle, turn down the heat.)
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Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip (I use Wilton 1M). Once the oil is hot enough, hold your piping bag directly over the oil and pipe a strip of dough 3-4 inches long. Use a pair of clean scissors to snip off the end. Repeat until you have 3-4 churros in the pan. Let them fry on each side for 1-2 minutes until they’re puffy and golden.
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Use tongs or a slotted spoon to remove them from the oil and place them on a plate lined with some paper towels. Repeat with the rest of the churro dough. While they’re still warm, toss the churros in the cinnamon sugar and serve as they are or with some dulce de leche.
Read more: Carrot & Crumb
Benji’s blog Carrot & Crumb has got you for all your baking needs. Her churros are one of our favourite recipes, but there’s so many more you’re going to want to add to your list. Trust us.
— cook’s notes
Churros are much easier and quicker to make than doughnuts; it’s just a matter of heating the water and butter in a pan before stirring in the flour and beating in the eggs. I pipe the dough straight into the oil which gives more random shapes but if you’d prefer them to be uniform, you can pipe them onto greaseproof paper first before frying.
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