Hot Choc Churros

Churros are easy to make and are a hit every time for the most appetizing fried dough. Boil, mix, rest, pipe, fry and you have the best accompaniment for any dessert. A Churro is a pastry dough based snack fried in oil and the outside has an uneven texture due to being piped through a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle. Churros may be straight, curled or spirally twisted. In South America the churro continued to evolve from a plain, thin stick to a more round stuffed specialty. The Brazilians have a preference to a chocolate filling, the Cubans like their Churros with Guava stuffing, Mexicans with dulce de leche or vanilla. A savoury combination occurs in Uruguay a cheese stuffed churro and in South Eastern Spain they are still eaten with salt rather than sugar. Mexican Churros are the connection between dessert and savoury Churros as salt is added to the dough before kneading at the same time as the filling is extremely sweet.

Ingredients serve 6

½ cup water (125g)

½ cup milk (125g)

2 tsp caster sugar (15g)

100 g unsalted butter

150 g plain flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs (150g)

Method

Place water, milk, sugar and butter in a cooking pot and bring to the boil, add flour, stir until evenly combined. Add eggs gradually and pipe mixture onto trays with baking paper using star nozzle no. 9. Freeze and store in closed containers in the freezer. Cook in the deep fryer on 180º C approx 5 min., let excessive oil drip off and then roll in cinnamon sugar.

Hot Chocolate Sauce

Place 200 g cream in a cooking pot and bring to the boil, add 50 g dark chopped chocolate, 1 tbls sweet chili sauce and keep stirring until all chocolate is dissolved. Pour into glasses and place on serving plate with churros.

Note: Make them in any shape preferred, eat them straight away or share with everyone you know.