Authentic Spanish Churros with just 3-ingredients

Churros is one of my favourite foods from childhood! In Spain any time of the day is pretty much good for churros, being the most popular during breakfast and afternoon snack. And of course you cannot have churros without a good cup of dark choclate on the side.

What is a Spanish Churro?

Spanish churros are basically long sticks of fried dough that are typically eaten with hot chocolate on the side. Optionally they are dusted in cinammon and sugar, and this is where a big debate comes in as only some regions of Spain (and also Mexico) do this while in the rest this is non-traditional. In my case, I am used to the cinammon sugar coating and I think it´s a great addition to the churros!

Another important note is that while churros in Mexico and other Latin American countries contain egg and butter, recipes in Spain are way more simple containing just 3 ingredients: flour, salt and water. This means that they have a crunchier exterior while churros made with eggs and butter have a more custardy soft interior.

🍫Ingredients

• 225g plain wheat flour (all-purpose flour)

• Pinch of salt

• 330g boiling hot water

• 1/2 tbsp olive oil

• Olive oil for frying

• Cinnamon and sugar for dusting (optional)

🍫Method

• Add flour and salt to a bowl and then the hot water. Mix rapidly with a wooded spoon until it becomes a sticky dough and then knead for a bit longer with your hands. Add the olive oil and continue mixing until obtaining a smooth dough (it still should be a bit sticky and not as dry as bread dough)

• Cover with a cloth and leave it to rest for 5 min

• Heat a good amount of olive oil in a frying pan (about 3cm high)

• Transfer the dough to a piping bag and pipe churros over the hot oil (cut end with scissors to get around 10-15cm churros). Leave them to cook for several minutes until golden brown and then flip over

• Once cooked on both sides transfer churros to kitchen paper to remove excess oil

• You can then coat then with cinnamon sugar (optional)

FAQS and Tips

• What type of piping tip did you use? I used the largest star tip I had, some recommended tips are: 1M, 1/4″/6mm open star tip, Ateco Silver 5/845.

• Afraid of deep frying? Don´t be but if you are scared to pipe the churros directly into the hot oil, you can pipe them first onto parchment paper and lower it onto the oil (then you can retrieve the parchment paper with thongs).

• Can I use another oil for frying? Absolutely! I use extra virgin olive oil because of its health benefits and high smoke point but you can substitute with other oils such as soybean, sunflower or vegetable.

• How do I know the oil is hot enough? If you place your wooden spoon inside the oil a stream of bubbles should come out but it shouldn’t be too hot that you start seeing smoke comming out of the pan. If the oil is too cold your churros will absorb more oil and be more greasy while if it is too hot they will brown very fast but not cook properly inside.

• My churros are raw inside! It sounds like you didn’t let them fry for long enough so they only cooked on the outside. Fry them for 2-3 more minutes so they cook throughly. If they are too brown outside this means the oil was too hot probably.

• How do I make the cinammon sugar for dusting the churros? I like to mix 120g of sugar with 1.5-2 tsp of ground cinammon

• How do I make the hot chocolate to pair with the churros? I make mine by adding 500mL of milk into a pan and 200g of dark choclate and stirring non-stop until it melts. Some people prefer to use milk chocolate instead if they like it sweeter so feel free to do so!

• What if my dough is too sticky? Churro dough is meant to be a bit sticky! If it is too sticky it could be two things: the gluten hasn´t properly developed or the water is not well incorporated. You can solve this by kneading the dough for longer and leave it to rest 5 extra minutes. If this still doesnt help you can add a bit more of extra flour to the dough to help absorb more water.