CHURROS

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These churros are dip fried in hot oil, coated in cinnamon sugar and served with a luscious caramelized white chocolate ganache. A treat you cannot walk away from once you have the first bite.

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Churros are initially from Spain and Portugal and were later adopted in Mexico. They are made with choux dough and cooked twice, just like an eclair dough. One of the most diverse delights is churros. You can incorporate different flavours, bake, air fry or dip fry. You can also use other flavoured sauce bases or even shape them circular like crullers or flat like a cookie.

The churro dough.

The churro dough is a choux pastry dough, the same dough used to make eclairs, profiteroles, croquembouche, choux bans, craquelins and dumplings.Churros are made from 5 essential ingredients;

• Butter. Use unsalted butter to control the amount of salt and flavour in your dough.
• All-purpose flour.
• Water or milk or a combination of both.
• Eggs. Eggs act as liquid ingredients to make the dough soft and pipeable and enhance a crisp texture in churros.
• Granulated sugar. It acts as a sweetener.

Churro dough is cooked twice, first on the stovetop and then deep-fried. The dough should be softer than bread and pipeable, like soft butter cookie dough.

Start by mixing milk, water, butter and sugar in a pan over medium heat, and bring to a boil.

Afterwards, pour sifted flour into the hot liquid and stir vigorously until fully incorporated into a smooth paste. Continue cooking while frequently stirring until a thin film of the dough forms on the working pan. (approximately 3 minutes on medium flame)

Remove from heat and transfer to a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until cool, add the eggs, then mix until combined. Immediately fill a pastry bag fitted with a large piping tip with the dough and start piping on parchment paper.

How to dip fry churros.

Although some recipes call for piping the dough directly into hot oil, I find this problematic. Firstly, you could quickly burn yourself while piping into the hot oil. Secondly, you need to work extra fast to let them cook uniformly, and you might need a pair of extra hands. Thirdly, it is hard to get defined shapes when piping directly into the hot oil.

The best way to fry churros is by piping churro dough on baking paper and refrigerating the piped churros for at least 30 minutes until cold and a bit stiff. Afterwards, cut the churros with baking paper, placing each as a single unit.

Then, pick each piped churro and place it in hot oil, removing the parchment paper after 2-3 minutes using tongs.

Caramelized white chocolate churro sauce.

Churros can be indulged straight after dip fried and cooled( like a Mandazi), or they can be rolled in Cinnamon sugar and dipped in any sauce. In this case, I used caramelized white chocolate ganache. You need only two ingredients :

1. Caramelized white chocolate bar
2. Heavy cream.

Take a bar of caramelized white chocolate and chop it into smaller pieces, then mix with heavy cream in a bowl. Place the bowl over simmering water and stir until the chocolate has completely melted. Remove and set aside to cool before serving.

Helpful tools.

1. Stand mixer.
2. Tongs.
3. Frying pan.
4. Parchment paper
5. Mesh strainer spoon.
6. Pastry bag.
7. Piping tip.

Notes for success.

Add the eggs one by one after the dough is completely cooled. Adding eggs into the hot dough will cook them, thus defeating their purpose, which is to add a glossy finish and make the dough soft enough to pipe. Eggs also give the churros a crisp outer texture.

Refrigerate piped churros before frying. They come out stiff after refrigeration making it easy to dip the churros into the oil while still maintaining the shape.

Make sure the oil is hot. You can test this by dipping the end of a wooden spoon into the oil; tiny bubbles should begin to appear around it. If it’s too hot, it will produce more giant bubbles. Frying in cold oil will make the churros soak in the oil and become soggy. On the other hand, if the oil is too hot, the churros will burn.

Avoid piping directly into the oil. The churros will cook ununiformed since, before you finish piping the last one, the first piped churro will already be cooked. You will need extra hands to help, and the churros might not pipe with a definite shape. To avoid this, pipe on parchment paper, refrigerate until cold, then cut and dip into the hot oil. It is faster and safer, and the churros maintain their shapes.

Roll in cinnamon sugar. Mix cinnamon with castor sugar and roll cooled churros in it before serving with the sauce.

Try out different sauces like milk and dark chocolate ganache, cream cheese sauce, coffee cream, salted caramel sauce or vanilla pastry cream.