One Day at a Time...

Valentine's Day Churros

This year we took a tip from chef Nigella Lawson.  Instead of going out for Valentine's Day, we stayed in and made churros!  I love churros.  My first experience with them was in Mexico City.  They are essentially long skinny stick-shaped donuts with cinnamon and sugar all over them, and you dip them in yummy sauces like caramel or chocolate.


Chef Nigella Lawson was interviewed on NPR and shared this recipe for her churros (made short and stubby, instead of long and skinny) and chocolate dipping sauce.

And they. were. awesome.  Kudos to Daniel for doing all the leg work and making most of them.  I really just helped a little and took all these photos.



Nigella's recipe is an adaptation from Thomasina Miers' churros recipe found in Mexican Food Made Simple.  



I copy-pasted the recipe for your perusing pleasure, below:

For the churros:
1/4 cup superfine sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup freshly boiled water
approx. 2 cups corn (or vegetable) oil, for deep-frying


For the thick chocolate sauce:
4 ounces good-quality bittersweet chocolate (or 1/2 cup chips)
1 ounce milk chocolate (or 2 tablespoons chips)
1 tablespoon golden syrup (such as Lyle's), or corn syrup
2/3 cup heavy cream

Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the churros in a gallon-sized plastic bag.  This is for coating the cooked churros later.

Melt all the chocolate sauce ingredients in a heavy-based saucepan, really gently, and once the chocolate starts to melt, stir everything together, take off the heat and leave in a warm place.

To make the churros, put the flour into a bowl and stir in the baking powder, then beat in the olive oil and 1 cup freshly boiled water from a kettle. Keep mixing until you have a warm, sticky dough, and leave to rest for about 10 minutes, or for as long as it takes for the corn (or vegetable) oil to heat up.

Heat the oil for frying in a smallish saucepan; it should come about a third of the way up the sides of the pan. When you think it's hot enough, toss in a cube of bread, and if it sizzles and browns in about 30 seconds, the oil's hot enough; or if you're using an electric deep-fat fryer or otherwise have the means to check the temperature, it should be at 325 degrees F. Keep a watchful eye on your hot oil pan at all times.


When you are ready, load up a piping bag with a large star-shaped piping tip and fill with the churros dough. Squeeze short lengths (approx. 1 1/2–2 inches) of dough into the hot oil, snipping them off with a pair of scissors as you go. I love the squishy feel of this.

Cook about three or four at a time and, once they turn a rich golden brown, fish them out of the oil with a perforated spoon or spatula, or with tongs, onto a cookie sheet lined with some paper towels. To keep the cooked churros warm while you fry the remaining dough, transfer them, after blotting with paper towels, to a parchment paper–lined lipped baking sheet and hold in a low oven (175 degrees F).

Even if you let them sit out of the oven, they do need 5–10 minutes to rest before you eat them, to allow them to set inside.

Toss all the hot churros into the sugar and cinnamon and shake them about to get a good covering, just before serving.

Once you have finished making the churros, pour the chocolate sauce into individual containers (to avoid the double-dipping dilemma) and dip'n'dunk away.

Recipe from Nigella Kitchen by Nigella Lawson.