So delish, much yum. Perfect for a late night snack or a brunch side. Week 19: Churros and chocolate.

 

 

One of my favorite snacks, hands down, from my post-grad European adventure was fresh churros and chocolate. The crispy, almost carmelized exterior, with the doughy interior, dipped into warm, bittersweet chocolate sauce . . . are you drooling yet? No worries, me too. We found a shop that made them late at night just a few blocks from our Airbnb in Barcelona and got them multiple times.

 

My other amazing churro experience was a custard-filled churro at a cart at the Temescal Street Fair 5 or 6 years ago. Ten times more filling, but oh my, was it amazing. Like a filled donut, but better. And easier to eat! No custard popping out the sides like a floppy jam donut, no sir. Once I invest in a sturdier piping bag and a larger star piping tip, I’m gonna tackle the cream-filled churro challenge (as I have dubbed it in my head.)

 

 

Tis my firm belief that one should always have cinnamon sugar on hand. I know it is simply two ingredients that most people have separate in their pantries, but having it already mixed leads to inspiration. The possibilities are endless! You start to think about whether it would taste good on almost all of your food. (From experience: good on oatmeal, weird on mashed potatoes. You never know until you try it.) Shout out to drunk cinnamon sugar toast – hits the spot, every time.

 

 

It is the simplest dough: sugar, water, oil and salt, brought to a boil and then mixed with flour to create a steaming dough. I immediately thought of choux pastry, but no eggs in this one! Fun fact: the lack of eggs makes it harder to pipe – stiffer dough.

 

 

Before aaaaaaaand after. Now, one of the things that plagues me as I bake is not noticing the obvious problems. Obvious problem #1: if you put steaming hot dough into a thin plastic piping bag, your hands will dislike you greatly as you try to squeeze the stiff dough out of the tiny star tip. You might growl pointlessly at the thin plastic piping bag before coming to the conclusion that you will just have to invest in a bag made of sturdier material. Let me save you some time and sore hands: make sure to use a cloth or thick plastic piping bag.

 

 

Handy dandy candy thermometer! The oil was supposed to reach 375F, but once I started frying, I stopped monitoring the temperature. Too much going on with potentially splattering oil to be consistent on that one.

 

 

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Except that this involved very little toil and only a little trouble with a non-cooperative piping bag. See it bulging in the center photo? Poor piping bag couldn’t handle the hulk dough.

I kept a close eye on the little churro nubs and pulled them out when they got a lovely deep golden color. The ridges occasionally got darker, but I found that those ones were cooked fully through and were the crispiest!

 

 

I then doused them in cinnamon sugar and transferred to my mouth – I mean serving plate.

 

 

The chocolate sauce is simply your favorite bittersweet or dark chocolate melted with some heavy cream for smoothness.

 

 

Voila! Churro nubs are so cute, aren’t they? Next time I am going to try a version of the recipe with egg in the dough so they will be fluffier and easier to pipe. Stay tuned. I’m sensing a Mother’s Day treat idea forming.

 

Happy munching!

 

No particular recipe used for this – just a compiled list of ingredients from vague google research.