- [Narrator] Churros, the delectable deep fried pastry.
Gooey and soft on the inside with ridges on the outside
that gather pockets of cinnamon and sugar
and help give it that classic crunch.
Today, we'll show you how to make Tasty's
ultimate churro recipe.
(upbeat music)
So who created the churros, anyway?
Great question.
We don't know.
The origin of the churro is heavily debated.
Some say it originated from Spanish shepherds
as an on-the-go replacement for bread.
It's said that the iconic curled shape
was made to resemble that of a sheep's horn.
But another recipe was discovered in ancient Rome
for a flour and water fritter
that had strong similarities
to the modern-day churro as well.
There's even a theory that Portuguese sailors
brought back youtiao, a similar pastry
from China to Portugal and spread into Spain.
Though, we can't say for sure
where the first variation of the churro originated.
We can tell you that today, we're going to be making
our favorite recipe for churros.
Regardless of its past,
Every churro starts with a pate a choux or a choux pastry,
which is just a mixture of flour, eggs,
butter, sugar, salt, milk, and water.
It's the same dough used for desserts
like cream puffs and eclairs.
We'll start with our wet ingredients.
We tested a few different water and milk ratios
and found that the half milk, half water ratio
helps the dough retain the right amount of moisture
while giving it the best flavor.
We'll add our liquids to a sauce pan,
along with some sugar, salt, butter, and vanilla bean.
You can use vanilla extract if that's what you have on hand,
but since we're making the ultimate churros,
we want to pack in as much vanilla flavor as possible.
It'll also give us a beautiful speckled dough.
Once that comes to a boil,
we'll remove the vanilla bean and then add in the flour.
Reduce the heat to medium low,
and stir with a wooden spoon
until the mixture forms a ball
and no longer sticks to the pan, about 5 minutes.
You'll know the flour is cooked
when it starts to pull away from the pan,
leaving no residue on the sides or bottom.
This should take about five minutes.
Now for the eggs.
We tested a variety of egg combinations,
and we found that two eggs made the inside
of the churro too gummy.
But four eggs made it too airy and spongy.
So three whole eggs was the winner.
Not too fluffy, not too dense, just right.
We'll transfer our dough to a bowl
and let it cool for about 5 minutes.
If it's too hot during this step,
you might end up with bits of scrambled eggs in your dough,
and we definitely don't want that.
Let's talk about mixing utensils.
We found that using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment
is the best way to mix the dough.
If you don't have a stand mixer,
using a wooden spoon works great.
It'll keep the dough at a constant temperature.
It's just a little more work,
and we here at Tasty are all about simplicity.
A metal whisk or an electric hand mixer
will transfer too much heat to the dough,
or it could whip too much air into your dough.
Egg-cellent.
Now that our dough is cooled down,
let's add the eggs one at a time,
making sure to completely mix one egg in
before adding the next.
It's going to look really separated and broken,
but it'll come together.
The finished dough should be gracefully falling
from the paddle, it shouldn't plop off.
It should look like a thick custard.
Let's move on to piping.
There are two main ways to pipe your churros.
You can pipe them by hand using a piping bag with a star tip
or use a churro maker.
We tested both ways and found that the churro maker
didn't make a huge difference in ease or efficiency,
but it does change the shape.
So if you have a churro maker on hand, feel free to use it.
But hand piping is totally fine too.
We'll be using a star tip to pipe our churros.
Not only is it the most traditional,
but the iconic star shape increases the surface area,
which allows for a bigger crunch
and also makes for a sturdier churro.
Pro tip, let the dough rest for five minutes before piping.
this will allow the dough to set up a little
and make piping easier.
We also experimented with a few other methods of resting.
Chilling and freezing.
The frozen churros brought the temperature of the oil down
and didn't get as crispy,
plus you run the risk of browning on the outside
without cooking it all the way through.
While chilling in the fridge
made the dough too sticky to get off the plate.
We achieve the best results
piping it straight into the oil.
Now it wouldn't be churros without a sweet coating.
You can go crazy with your churro toppings,
but for recipe, we have decided to stick
to the traditional cinnamon sugar coating.
We're using ceylon cinnamon.
Ceylon cinnamon is brighter and has more of a floral taste.
While cassia is more common and a little more subtle.
A good rule of thumb is to add one teaspoon of cinnamon
to every half cup of sugar.
We're using good old granulated sugar here.
This small granules stick to the churros nicely
and fit better into all of those
delicious nooks and crannies.
Now it's time to cook our churros.
Our method of choice is deep frying.
We found that it's the only way to really get
that classic, crispy exterior and soft center.
You just won't get the same results
in an air fryer or the oven.
The best temperature to fry your churros
is 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
This will ensure your churros are fully cooked through
with the perfect crispy outside.
Frying at too high of a temperature could again,
leave you with a burnt outside and a raw center.
You can totally stop here
and enjoy your well-deserved churros.
But we're going to amp things up a little bit
with a spicy chocolate dipping sauce.
We're going to start with the base of the sauce,
which is our classic ganache.
First we'll heat up our cream
and then add in our cayenne and cinnamon.
We're using semi-sweet chocolate chips.
So our dip has a little bitterness,
which will blend really well
with our sweet cinnamon sugar coating.
Now for the sweetest part, serving them up.
Pairing our golden hot churros
with our spicy chocolate dipping sauce
makes for the ultimate combo.
The perfect crispy outside and soft pillowy inside.
Churr-ay!
Our churros are finally ready to eat,
so let's give them a taste.
Yum, one bite of these churros will have you saying
- [Multiple People] Oh yes!
(light music)