Mia's Recipe: Churros

Last week, I tried to bake some Mickey Mouse vanilla cupcakes with brownie centre but failed miserably as I didn't cream my butter and sugar together well. I ended up with extremely dense, brownie like cupcakes. :(

This week, I've decided to give my all time favourite Spanish snack a go, Churros! I've combined Ochikeron's and Ann Reardon's recipe to get a recipe of my own. So let's get on to the ingredient list. 

We will need:

1. Milk - 150ml

2. Water - 100ml

3. Flour (All purpose, bread, or cake) - 125g

4. Unsalted butter - 115g

5. Sugar - 13g (1 tablespoon)

 6. Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon

7. Eggs - 3 nos.

8. A pinch of salt

9. Cinnamon sugar

First up, combine 1 tsp. of cinnamon powder with 3 tbsp. of caster sugar (you can use normal granulated sugar if you wish) to make Cinnamon sugar and set that aside. Otherwise, just grab a bottle of the cinnamon sugar from the supermarket.

Combine the milk and water in a pot. 

If you dislike the taste of milk, you can use 250ml of water. Likewise, if you'll prefer a richer taste of milk you can use 250ml of milk as well.

Add in the unsalted butter and bring the mixture to a low boil. Mix well until all butter has melted. 

Add in sugar and salt and mix well until all sugar and salt has dissolved. 

Turn down the heat and sift in the flour. Mix vigorously until the mixture comes together into a dough ball. Keep the pot on low heat and continue mixing for a while until the dough starts to leave a skin on the side of the pot.

Transfer the dough into a clean bowl (or you can do it in the pot if you wish) and continue stirring at it to cool it down. This is crucial as you will be adding in the eggs next and you will not want the hot dough to scramble your eggs. 

When the dough has cooled slightly, crack in the 3 eggs, mix well after each addition. 

It'll look like a slimy mess as above when you first crack in the egg and it seems like it will not mix. But trust me, continue working on it and it'll all come together. 

You know you got it when your batter turns sticky like so. (I apologise for the blurry pic. Gotta take it singlehandedly while I battled the batter) 

Then transfer your batter into a pastry bag fixed with a star tip. The "traditional" churros will probably need a large tip (0.6") but since I do not have one, I decided to make some mini churros with my ~0.6cm tip!

I piped out a total of 70 number of 9-10cm long strips like so. There was still a small amount of batter left in my pastry bag so I reckon I could have gotten 75 of them. 

I've piped about 18 to 20 strips on two large baking sheets to be baked at 190 degree celsius for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Just before baking, spray them down with some cooking oil spray or brush them generously with some melted unsalted butter. 

For the other half of my batter, I've piped them onto smaller squares of baking paper that will be a good fit for my frying pot, 4 strips to one square. Then, I deep fried them in the frying pot sheet by sheet (to avoid the churros on two sheets sticking together) till golden brown. When the batter starts to firm and puff up, gently pry them off the baking paper and remove the paper from the oil. 

When the churros (both baked and fried) are still hot, roll them in a plate of cinnamon sugar and make sure they're well coated. 

Fried ones on the left and baked ones on the right. I know they look burnt in the photos, but actually they're not. I've no idea why the photos turned out so dark.

These churros are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside with a pleasant taste of cinnamon sugar. I personally will prefer the baked ones, not only because they're much easier to cook but also very much less oily. They'll definitely taste good with a cup of hot chocolate or with some chocolate dip!

Do try both method out and tell me which is your preference. :)

Till then,

Mia