No I didn’t disappear to some exotic island but sometime after my last entry in May, I found myself hurled into a whirlwind of The Busy; family flew over for an impromptu visit, completing the final hurdle of Cert III Patisserie, birthday and wedding cake orders, and a new small business venture handmaking toys and how that sucked up all my cooking and blogging time. Procrastination soon grew into a permanent molehill; at least until recently when delicious crisp homemade spanish churros zapped me out of my two month foodsze amnesia! These are simple and quick to make; ingredients are minimal but stirring the stiff flour paste and then squeezing it out through a piping bag requires muscles! I had the paste in a disposable plastic piping bag at first and it split before I even got the first squeeze out, so make sure you use a sturdy polyester bag. Dust these deep-fried spanish doughnuts with icing sugar, sprinkle a touch of cinnamon or better still dip them in some luxurious melted chocolate and you’ve saved yourself a trip to San Churros 😀
SPANISH CHURROS
(adapted from The Cookie and Biscuit Bible)
Makes 8-10 14cm long churros
Ingredients
250 ml water
1 tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt, plus extra for coating
175 g plain flour
1 egg (I used 2 x 60g eggs)
oil, for deep-frying
1/2 lime or lemon
Method
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Pour the measured water into a heavy pan, add the sugar and salt and bring to the boil over low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat, tip in the flour and beat until smooth (requires quite a bit of strength, the dough should come away from the sides of the pan. Leave to cool slightly for approximately 15 minutes before beating in the eggs)
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Beat in the egg(s) (one at a time) until the mixture is smooth and satiny. Set aside.
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Heat 5 – 6 cm depth of oil with the lime or lemon in a deep-frying pan to 190oC or until a cube of bread browns in 30-60 seconds.
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Pour the batter into a large piping (pastry) bag with a fluted nozzle ( I used a 2 cm star-shaped nozzle). Pipe 7.5 cm strips (I made mine 14 cm long) of batter into the hot oil. (Use a small knife to dislodge the paste from the tip of the nozzle). Fry a few at a time for 3-4 minutes until golden. Remove, drain on kitchen paper and roll in granulated sugar. ( Or you could simply dust with icing sugar, pinch of cinnamon or melt 200 g of good quality chocolate to serve with the churros)
