Cheering for Churros

Ok... so I know it's been a while since the last blog, I'm sorry!  I'm sure those of you with kids know what it's like, some weeks just get away from you and before you know it, it's a month later and the season is finally changing... which is almost what's happening here.  Autumn is desperately trying to arrive but Summer is clinging on... finger by finger being peeled away... hopefully by Easter Autumn can finally arrive in full force, bring on the rain, storms & changing leaves... ahhh.

So in the meantime, we've been busy making candles and baking... our favourite thing on a Friday night now is to sit down with a super yum treat & watch my corny home reno shows :)  So two Fridays ago we made churros!  For those of you who have never heard of churros, they're basically a Spanish doughnut, but it's just a long stick of sweet dough that's deep fried... mmmmm.  For those of you who have heard of them, thanks to San Churros (you totally have to go next time you're near one if you've never tried them before http://www.sanchurro.com/ ) ... yes, those of you who have been to San Churro, I have to say, ours were almost the same, we were just missing the melted chocolate to dip them in, which would definitely make them perfect.

Anyway, here's a pic of how ours turned out & our recipe below

 

 Churros

125g chopped butter
1 cup water
1 cup plain flour (sifted)
3 eggs (we'd use 2 next time, it was a little too eggy for us)
Vegetable oil to deep fry
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (or more if you wish)

Place butter and water in a saucepan over low heat until butter is melted & water just comes to the boil.  Add flour and stir until mix just comes away from side of the pan.
Place mix into a mixing bowl.  Allow to cool for a few minutes.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with an electric beater in between each egg, until mix is smooth.
Place dough into piping bag with a star nozzle (1cm is big enough).
Heat enough oil to reach a depth of 4-5cm (do not let oil go more than halfway up the side of the pan, if it does, you need a deeper pan).  Oil is hot enough when a piece of bread browns in 15 seconds.
Pipe 10cm lengths of dough into the oil, use a knife to slice off each length.  We did a test run of just one at a time to determine the exact cooking time.  Some recipes called for a minute each side, ours ended up being about 2.5mins each side (I'm guessing our oil wasn't hot enough or cooled down too quickly when we added the churros to fry).
Remove from oil once cooked and place into a dish with the sugar & cinnamon mix, toss until well coated & serve.
If you don't want to do the cinnamon sugar, you can just let them drain a little on paper towel and make a little chocolate ganache to keep in a mini fondue pot... also awesome!

If you make them let me know how they worked out.  Next blog will have a rolled spinach omelette recipe (thanks to Martha Stewart!)... that was yummo too!