The best handcrafted churros should be made with your little ones helping. The delight in their eyes when they watch the dough puff up and turn brown in the oily bubbles is intoxicating. Just leave the actual frying to the adults.

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Share on facebook
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Share on tumblrI’ve been aware of churros, but besides the one odd shop in Kensington Market I’ve never had a chance to try them. Besides, their odd shape and sugar sprinkles didn’t really inspire any taste testing.

During one of the many days that we spent in social distancing during the Corona Virus Pandemic, it was getting close to snack time and Knight had a brain storm. He had been binge-watching TikTok videos, and one of them was a bearded teen @flakeysalt explaining how to make churros. Knight was so excited to make them that he was practically drooling.

I love when he expresses interest in cooking. It’s a great bonding experience and it expands his cooking skills. This experiment opened my horizons too, as not only had I never eaten a churro before, I’d also never deep-fried anything! A new experience for both of us!

Real mom life includes a crowded counter.

Handcrafted Churros

• 5 Tbsp butter
• 1 cup water
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 cup flour
• three eggs, and one egg yolk
• pastry bag, or a ZipLock bag
• star tip
• vegetable oil
• 
  candy thermometer
  
• sugar
• cinnamon

1. Gather all of your ingredients.
2. In a small pot over medium heat, melt the butter.
3. Add the water and sugar, vanilla and sea salt (we didn’t have any sea salt, so used table salt instead, making the measurements adjustments needed)
4. Stir until the sugar dissolves.
5. Add flour and stir until mixture is smooth.
6. Take off the heat and let cool, about 10-15 minutes.
7. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring until incorporated.
8. Add extra egg yolk. Stir until smooth.
9. Pop the nozzle into the pastry bag or plastic bag with one of the corners cut off.
10. Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.
11. Heat a few inches of oil in a heavy bottomed pot to the Deep Fry zone of your candy thermometer – around 375 degrees F. Make sure that the thermometer isn’t touching the pot bottom.
12. When the oil is in  the zone, pipe in a few inches of churros batter. The oil will bubble furiously, which is delightful but dangerous. Parent-only task!
13.  Deep fry until the churros is golden brown. If the oil is too hot, the outside will darken too quickly before the insides cook, and you’ll end up with a raw batter middle. If the oil is at the right temperature, it will take about 5-6 minutes – just right!
14. Using a wire skimmer or spider, lift out the churros, letting the oil drip back into the pot.
15. Tip the churros into the bowl of cinnamon sugar. Let cool.

Repeat steps 12-15 until the batter is used up, and you have a bountiful plate of sugar-dusted deep fried deliciousness

The best part for us was watching the churros bounce around in the oil. We didn’t have a proper icing tip which meant that our snakes of batter were smooth. This resulted in the outer layer cracking open to show the raw batter inside. They ended up being absolutely delicious, but if you want to have nice looking pastries I would recommend investing in a proper tip. It will also help distribute the heat to the frying batter, ensuring a more even cook.

Now it’s your turn! Comment below if you’ve tried this recipe and let me know how it turned out!