Foolproof Homemade Churros

Crispy fried doughnuts with a delicious warm chocolate sauce. Of course, they are the Spanish doughnut called a churros. And I'm going to show you how to make them from scratch. So in here, I've just been heating up some water. To this, I'm going to add some butter. So this is the base of the dough. Now, we'll just let that melt away before we add in our flour. While we're waiting for that, we can do the sugar coating. So into a tray just like this, we're going to add some caster sugar. This is a must because it gives the doughnuts a real crunchy flavour on the outside. When I have been to Spain, I've seen it just the simple way, just with sugar. Cinnamon is also very popular. But also, orange. Orange is a fantastic addition to these doughnuts. So I'm just going to zest some of the orange into this. And really do it straight over the sugar. So all of the essential oils from the orange go straight into it. That should do it. Just a little bit goes a long way. So about half an orange. And then use your hands to really rub all of that orange zest into the sugar. OK, let's pop that to the side. You can see how fast all of that butter has melted. And it's up to the boil. So we're going to add all the flour at once. So you don't need to slowly, slowly add it. Add it all at once. And then with a wooden spoon, we're going to start mixing this. I've got my induction on a medium to high heat. So we've got a lovely even heat here. And now it's all about incorporating that flour into the liquid and the butter. And keep mixing it until it comes away from the side of the pan, which it is now. And we've got a beautiful formed dough. That looks great. OK, we'll take it out of the pot. And then place it into a bowl. Now we need to incorporate the eggs. But this is too hot right now. So I'm just going to let it cool down for a moment while we prepare the oil. Because it really happens quite fast. So I'm just using some peanut oil. Of course, you can use some vegetable oil too, or even olive oil. But we want this to get up to about 180 degrees. And what's clever about this induction is it has temperature control. So I can get this up to the optimum temperature. So I need this to be at 180 degrees. And just with my function here, I can set that up, set it to 180 degrees. And it's going to stay at that consistent temperature throughout the whole cook. So while that's heating up, and it will notify me when it is at the optimum temperature, we can get back to our churros. Now, this is cooled down so we can start to incorporate our eggs. And of course, you can mix it in with your wooden spoon. But I find it so much easier to use a hand mixer, just to ensure that we get a lot of air in there and the eggs are incorporated well. So one egg at a time, a whole egg. Straight in. Give that a really good mix. And then we can incorporate the next one. All right, let's have a look at this batter. It's looking quite nice. It's silky. It's smooth. See that? That's what we're after. OK, now the best way to do this is with a piping bag. And I've placed a nozzle in the base of the piping bag. I just really want that signature churros look. And that's why I've added the star nozzle. We'll just place that into a jug. This is just a really good trick to get it in so it's quite tidy, not messy. And we'll just place our donut dough into the bag. OK, we'll just lift up the sides. And then just carefully press it down and feed it into that star nozzle. So we're ready to go. Yep, see that? All right, now for the fun part, which is frying. Of course, be very careful when you're working with oil. I haven't filled it up too much because when the churros hits it, the oil is going to start bubbling. So we're going to start with one. And we're going to feed some of that dough straight into the oil. As it hits the oil, we're going to cut the churros off. See how easy that is to do? So pressing down, you can make them as long or as short as you like. And I'm just going to do a few at a time. Cut that there. And these are going to take a couple of minutes to cook. Once they're golden, they'll come straight out of that oil. And then into that orange sugar. OK, the second batch of churros have gone in. They're almost ready, which means it's time to make the hot chocolate sauce. I've just been heating up on a high heat some milk and cream. And once that gets hot, I'm going to turn this down to a really low heat. As we know, chocolate and extreme heat don't go together because it can split. And when you've got the accuracy of a really good quality induction, you can get it down to a super low heat, which means it's just going to gently melt the chocolate. So use some good quality chocolate for this. I'm using dark chocolate. And then I'm just going to break this chocolate into our milk and cream mixture. And it's going to slowly melt away into a luscious sauce. I'm also going to thicken it up slightly with a hint of cornflour. So what I'm going to do is just add some of that hot liquid into some cornflour. You only need half a teaspoon. And this is a trick my Spanish friend showed me. I think it's a fantastic way to really get that chocolate extra, extra thick and glossy. So we're just going to mix in that chocolate. I also like to add a hint more sugar. So just a pinch. And that's just a personal touch. If you don't like it too sweet, you can leave the sugar out. OK, so I'm just going to give that one little mix. And then just let it be for a moment until all of that chocolate has melted. Then I'll incorporate that cornflour. Churros can come out. I'm going to turn the heat off there. Look how golden brown they are. They're just perfect. And then straight into our sugar. And I do insist on adding them when they're piping hot to the sugar. Because if they're cooled down, not as much sugar is going to stick onto them. See how that sticks really easily? That's what we're after. Oh, I just wish you could smell this. It smells so good with that orange. We'll just coat that last one. And to plate this up, we're just going to pile the churros. I like how I've got some longer ones and some shorter ones. Fantastic. And now going back to our chocolate. Yes, almost melted through. Which means we can add our cornflour mixture. And then we just want to mix it through that. And just continually mix until it thickens up. So keep mixing and get that heat in there without it getting too hot. And you'll watch. Look how thick and glossy this mixture becomes. Yes, I could just drink that. So good. Now I'm just going to pour this into just a mini bowl on the side. So you can dip it in, fill it all the way up. There we go. And that's how easy it is to make churros at home. All right, of course, I'm going to have to taste this. I'm just going to dip that in. See how that chocolate is sticking perfectly? And you know what? It's okay to double dip with this one. Because you're going to need chocolate on that whole donut. Who am I kidding? I love every type of donut. But there's just something about the Spanish donut churros that is just so exciting. I think it's the whole theater of a hot donut. They're with crispy sugar and lashings of hot chocolate. Perfection.