Churros, Mexico's Iconic Fried Pastry Treat (2024)

by Jorge GarciaFebruary 06, 2021January 29, 2021

Mexico cuisine is not just known for its tortillas and meat preparations but also its desserts. Churros is one such Mexican sweet that’s found in both high end restaurants and sold on street corners throughout Mexico. It’s not only delicious but also very easy and quick to make.

So, what are churros, and how do you make them?

Churros is a famous pastry snack usually eaten for breakfast with different sweet dipping sauces in Mexico, Portugal, Spain, etc. Churros are crispy from the outside and soft and tender from within. The dish is best served fresh and hot. Sugar is sprinkled on the churros to lend the dish increased sweetness.

If you want to make something quick without compromising on taste, you must give churros a try. Keep reading if a churro sounds like a plan.

How To Make Churros

As mentioned above, Mexican churros taste the best when they’re hot and fresh out of the frying pan.

But it’s not uncommon to have them refried, reheated after being frozen, etc.

Regardless of how and when you relish your churros, the dish’s ingredients are the same across the board.

Ingredients

Churro is a simple dish, particularly when compared to other popular Mexican dishes. Its ingredient list, as a result, is relatively modest too. Here are all the items you’ll need:

• All-purpose flour (1 ½ cup)
• Sugar (1/2 cup)
• Unsalted butter (8 tbsps.)
• Eggs (3 nos.)
• Pure vanilla extract (1/2 tsp.)
• Canola oil
• Ground cinnamon
• Salt (1/4 tsp.)
• Water

Besides the above, grab a piping bag or a churrera to give the churros their trademark cylindrical look and shape.

Cooking Instructions

Once you’ve got all the items needed to prepare churros, start making your churros. Here are the steps:

1. Take a medium-size cooking pot and throw unsalted butter in the pan. The butter used must be at room temperature. If the butter is cold or fresh out of the fridge, let it come to normal temperature before putting it in the pan.
2. Add a cup of water to the pot, half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, sugar (1 tbsp.), cinnamon (1 tsp.), and salt.
3. Place the cooking pot on a stove and set the heat at medium. Let the butter melt completely.
4. Once the butter is fully melted, turn down the heat to low and add flour. Stir the flour and butter mix for a minute so that the two blend well. The continued stirring should leave you in the end with flour dough.
5. After the dough is formed, turn off the stove. Do not remove the dough out of the cooking pot yet. Continue mixing it for a minute so that the dough forms an even stronger bond.
6. After a minute, transfer the dough to a bowl to cool it down a bit. It may take up to 15 minutes for the dough to come down to room temperature.
7. Add eggs to the dough one by one. Once you break and throw in the egg, mix it with the dough before adding in the next egg.
8. Once the eggs are added, give the mix a thorough whisk so that the eggs blend nicely with the dough. The end outcome should be a stickier dough, courtesy of the eggs.

Next, start making your churros using the piping or pastry bag. If you don’t know what a piping bag is and how to use it, watch this video that teaches you how to make one yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE3-LSS44x8

A piping bag can be used with a variety of dishes. It usually has a sharper tip or narrow opening at the bottom.

However, for the churros, cut the opening an inch above its tip so that it’s bigger and the dough that comes out is of the right thickness. Once you have made your piping bag or bought one pre-made, continue with the cooking.

1. Put the piping bag into a tall cup and wrap the outside of the cup with the bag’s frills. A cup is not mandatory, but it does help put the dough mix into the piping bag. Ensure the tip is slightly bent so that the bottom opening is closed while you put in the dough.
2. Put the dough into the bag. Fill the bag with the dough completely so that there are no air bubbles.
3. After adding the dough into the bag, seal the bag by rolling the top plastic part. Let the piping bag sit with the dough for a few minutes while the oil is getting ready.
4. Grab a frying pan and place it on a stove, with the heat set to medium. Add five cups of canola oil to the pan. Let the oil heat up.

Simultaneously, make your cinnamon sugar.

1. Grab a pan or bowl and add sugar and cinnamon to it. The cinnamon quantity can be customized. One and a half teaspoons with half a cup of sugar is the norm. But you may add less or more cinnamon based on how you like it.
2. Mix the two well. The sugar and cinnamon mix is done.

Now, get back to the oil. Once the oil is hot and sizzling, start making your churros.

1. Take the dough sitting in the piping bag and squeeze it from the top into the oil.
2. Make sure you slowly move your hands across the pan as you squeeze the dough out to get those thick dough strips. Cut the dough with a kitchen scissor once the desired churro length is attained.
3. Let the churros fry in the pan for five to seven minutes or once the churros take on the light golden-brown hue.
4. Spider out the fried churros and place them on a plate or bowl covered with a paper towel. Let the churros sit there for some time or until the excess oil has been absorbed by the paper. If needed, fold up the paper towel from its side and dab at the churros.
5. After a few minutes of absorbing and dabbing, take a churro while it’s relatively hot and place it in the cinnamon-sugar mix.
6. Roll the churro over the plate to completely cover it with the mix. Repeat the process for the other churros. The churros should then be ready to serve.

Churros can be served with a range of dips, including hot chocolate, dulce de leche, Champurrado, Café con Leche, ice cream, etc.

You may also drizzle cajeta, chocolate, caramel, etc., over the churros.

Making Churros – Tips/Tricks

Here are a few things you need to be wary of when making your churros:

• Adding the egg one by one and mixing it with the dough can be tricky, thanks to the dry and thick dough. If mixing the dough and eggs by hand or using a whisker proves a tad too difficult, throw the dough with an egg in a blender. Before adding another egg, give the dough and the egg a blend. Continue with this intermittent blending each time you add an egg.
• While squeezing the dough into the pan, make sure your hands are not so close to the oil that they physically sense the sputtering. At the same time, do not position the piping bag too far away from the oil as the churros may not come out well or could break midway.
• As far as churro length goes, it could be as long or short as you wish. If you fancy a relatively long churro, ensure the pan is expansive enough to accommodate that length, or the dough’s ends should not pop out of the oil while the other portions are deep-fried. If you don’t want the churros to be straight or want them knotted or curvy, go ahead and squeeze out more dough.
• Also, do not overcrowd the pan with churros as it would then become a tad challenging to fry them all optimally at the same time. The actual number of churros to fry simultaneously will depend on the pan’s size and churro length. A regular-size pan should be able to house three to five churros at once.

Conclusion

Churros may seem a bit complicated to make initially. But once you dive in, you’ll realize how simple and straightforward the dish is.

If you have kids at home, they’ll love the sweet. And most likely, you’ll end up making multiple batches.

Churros go great with Champurrado and a café de olla. Enjoy!

Sources

• Wikipedia: Churro
• YouTube: How to Make Perfect Churros | Churros Recipe
• Cooking Classy: Churros (Homemade Recipe)