Churros

When I'm planning out my dinners for the week and there's a dish I'm planning on deep frying, I try to think of other meals or dishes I can deep fry so as not to waste a pan of oil. That's how I decided to make these churros. I thought about making donuts but I didn't want to have to sit around and wait for a yeasted dough to proof and make a glaze so I went for a simplified donut: the churro.

Because I was going to use my small cast-iron pan (for falafels), I ended up making these cute little mini churros and they were perfect for portion control.

Ingredients:

batter
¼ cup butter
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup flour
2 eggs
oil for frying

coating

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons packed brown sugar

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon coarse salt

These churros are made from a simple pate a choux dough; it's the same dough used for making cream puffs and eclairs and gougeres. I used my normal choux recipe except I used brown sugar for a deeper caramel flavor.

Start by adding milk, butter, and brown sugar to a sauce pan. Heat until the butter melts, sugar dissolves, and the milk is scalding.

When the milk is scalding, add in the flour and stir quickly with a spatula until the flour is hydrated. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until a film of dough forms on the surface of the pan. The goal here is to cook out some of the moisture in the dough to "make space" for the eggs to be able to be absorbed by the flour.

Let the dough cool until it's just barely warm and then stir in the eggs one at a time. The dough will start off kind of gloppy and then the egg will start to become one with the dough and form a sticky batter.

Put the batter into a piping bag fitted with a star tip. The star tip gives the churros lovely ridges which will hold onto the cinnamon sugar.

To make the cinnamon sugar, just combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon.

Heat oil to 350F and squeeze in little tubes of batter directly into the oil. You can use scissors to help you snip off the dough; because it's so thick, it won't really loosen from the star tip without a little help.

Fry until golden brown, just a few minutes on each side, and then drain on a paper towel-lined wire rack. While the churros are still warm, toss in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Serve the churros while they're still nice and warm. I loosened up some arequipe (which is Colombian dulce de leche) with a bit of cream and made an easy chocolate sauce with equal parts heavy cream and chocolate to have with the churros. They're completely delicious on their own but the option to dip is fun.

The churros are crisp and light and the crunch from the sugar along with the tender inside is a lovely textural contrast. I absolutely love that bit of salt in the cinnamon sugar coating.

Here's the recipe page: