Well, we've come to the end of our half term week. It's been a good week catching up with family and friends, despite the bouts of coughs and sniffles that have arrived just in time for the return to school. Frozen to the core this morning in the playground and now sat listening to the rain outside, we've been craving a little winter warmer to keep us feeling snug and cozy this afternoon. This has arrived in the form of Churros.
I love these little doughnuts. Very simple to make, they are delicious just covered with sugar and cinnamon or for a more luxurious treat, dipped in lovely warm chocolate sauce. The batter itself is very simple if you follow the below recipe from Lorraine Pascale, although I had to experiment with the heat of the oil when deep frying them as too hot and the skin of the doughnut blisters and they go brown before the inside is cooked. I made each one quite small as I wanted a one-bite Churros rather than long snakes - but the danger with this is that you think you can eat a lot more than you should! In fact, a number of them didn't make it from the cinnamon sugar bowl onto the final plate...well, I had to taste them to check they made the final cut :) These are best eaten fresh and they taste like the doughnuts you buy on seaside piers (with the added advantage that you don't have seagulls trying to eat them out of your hand at home!)
Churros With Hot Chocolate Sauce (from Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy)
Ingredients
Churros Batter
- 60G BUTTER
- 150ML BUTTERMILK (I DIDN'T HAVE THIS SO USED MILK WITH A SQUEEZE OF LEMON)
- 70G PLAIN FLOUR
- PINCH OF SALT
- 1TSP GROUND CINNAMON
- 2-3 EGGS (I USED 2 LARGE EGGS)
- VEGETABLE OIL FOR DEEP-FRYING (AROUND 1/3 SMALL SAUCEPAN)
Cinnamon Sugar
- 100G CASTER SUGAR
- 1TBSP GROUND CINNAMON
Hot Chocolate Sauce
- 165ML DOUBLE CREAM
- 100G DARK CHOCOLATE
- 25G BUTTER
- 1TBSP GOLDEN SYRUP
Method
- To make the batter, put the butter and milk into a saucepan and set it over a medium heat. Once the butter has melted, turn up the heat and bring to the boil.
- Immediately remove the pan from the heat and add the flour, salt and cinnamon. Stir vigorously until the mixture starts to come away from the sides of the pan. Set it aside for 10-15 minutes.
- Then add the eggs one at a time, beating hard after each addition. The mixture should be shiny and glossy. The recipe calls for 2-3 eggs - my mixture was very shiny and glossy after 2 large eggs so I didn't add the third.
- Put the mixture in a piping bag with a star nozzle.
- To make the cinnamon sugar, simply mix the sugar and tablespoon of cinnamon on a plate ready for the Churros rolling.
- Heat the oil in the saucepan until a small cube of bread browns in around 50 seconds.
- Pipe 3-4 Churros in your saucepan (depending on size as they will swell up a little so they need some room and also if you add too many, it will reduce the heat of the oil and they won't cook). I pipe a small amount into the oil and then use a pair of scissors to cut the end of the Churros so it drops into the pan.
- Once they turn golden brown and become firm then they are ready which should take around 4 mins. If the skin starts to blister and they become brown very quickly then the oil is too hot and you need to reduce the temperature.
- Once they are cooked, remove them from the oil with a slatted spoon and drain on some kitchen paper, then roll in the cinnamon sugar.
- To make the chocolate sauce, heat the cream in a saucepan until it's just starting to boil and then remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and butter and without stirring, set it aside for 5 minutes. Then stir it until it's smooth, add the golden syrup and then stir again until smooth.
- Eat whilst still fresh and warm for the best tasting Churros!