The always wonderful Kris Wu is here today to share her delicious homemade churros recipe. If you are unfamiliar with what churros are, they are deliciously fried strips of dough (similar to funnel cake) covered in cinnamon sugar and (can be) filled with chocolate, strawberry, or condensed milk. Yeah, we know, we love them too.
Join us as we salivate over pictures of crispy churros and ponder how Kris got to be so gosh darn cool. Take it away, Kris!
Homemade Churros Recipe You will Love to Have!
What are Churros? Make Your Own at Home!
Who here love churros? Or maybe, the better question to ask is, who here doesn’t love churros? I think that we, as human beings, are, by default, required to love fried dough that’s been rolled in cinnamon sugar. Nothing beats a fresh, still-warm churro, with its crisp outer shell exploding with cinnamon sugar and soft, chewy inside that helps balance the cinnamon sugar sweetness with a light saltiness. You can find them at just about any state fair or amusement park, and at almost every Mexican restaurant where churros are offered as dessert and are often accompanied by chocolate syrup or ice cream (or both!).
My favorite version of churros is a tie between the traditional Spanish churros sold at a nearby restaurant and the notoriously addictive ones sold at Disneyland. The chewiness and body of Disney’s churros is the stuff of dreams; while the crunchy, textured outer crust of the Spanish churro makes my mouth water. So, which recipe do I use? One with eggs? Butter? Oil? Milk? There were so many recipes for churros that I didn’t know where to begin. Ultimately, I decided to forge my own recipe by process of elimination – which ingredients were a constant? Which ingredients were okay to swap out? And which ingredients would be needed to keep the recipe simple, yet still yield the results I was looking for?
After making 6 or 7 different batches, I’m happy with (and a little fatter because of) the recipe I created. The best news for you (other than the fact that you don’t have to endure my trials and errors) is that the best-tasting churro was also the easiest to make. The ingredients are so basic that they’re a high chance you probably already have them lying around your kitchen. The methods are simple and require no special tools to save one (that can be found for $0.99 at your local craft store). Churros are not only easy to make but are also easy on the wallet. Yay!
So, enough of my yapping – let’s get down to business and see what those ingredients are!
Ingredients for Homemade Churros Recipe
- 1 cup water
- 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp. cinnamon
- 1-quart vegetable oil (for frying, not pictured)
At this point, you’re thinking, “No way! Magic like that is not supposed to be this cheap and simple.” Oh, but it is!
In terms of supplies (aside from a frying pan with raised edges), all you need are these items:
- masking or packaging tape
- a gallon-sized plastic bag
- scissors
- a large star tip (available at your local craft store for $0.99 or less! If you already have a piping bag, then you can definitely use that instead. But for those of you that don’t do cake or cookie decorating that often, this is a great substitute.)
Well, let’s get started!
Instructions:
Step 1. Prepare to Mix Churros Pastry Dough
Pour 1 cup of water into a saute pan, preferably one with a thicker bottom. Set the heat to medium and add your oil in.
When the water comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat and add the flour and salt. Stir carefully; the flour will stick to the sides and the bottom quickly.
(I didn’t do it in the picture, but it’s best to take the pot off of the heat source entirely.) It’ll get harder to stir because of how sticky the dough becomes, but just keep going!
Step 2. Form a Ball of Pastry Dough
Your ball of dough will form after stirring for a minute or two. Keep stirring and gathering the parts of dough sticking to the pot into the ball until the dough becomes a little less sticky and slightly glossy with no lumps. Set the pot aside so that the dough can cool before you handle it.
Before we jump to the next step, heat your frying oil on medium (350ºF), in either a large pot or a frying pan with raised sides. If you use a frying pan like I chose to, make sure the oil is at least an inch deep — you need to be able to mostly submerge your churro for even cooking and great texture.
Step 3. How to Make Star Tip Piping Bag
While the dough is cooling and the oil is heating up, it’s time to create our makeshift pastry bag! Take your resealable gallon-sized plastic bag and choose any corner (it doesn’t matter which one). Measure a centimeter from the edge, then cut off the tip of the corner to create a triangle-shaped hole.
(Note: It’s important that you use a gallon-sized plastic bag and not a sandwich-sized bag as the larger bags are similar in consistency to a disposable pastry bag. The plastic needs to be thicker in order to withstand the pressure of your squeezing; otherwise, the bag will burst and you’ll end up with sticky dough all over your hands!)
Take your large star tip and place it inside of your bag and towards the corner you’ve cut. Poke the star tip out of the hole and try to make one of its sides flesh with a side of the plastic bag. It won’t fit perfectly like a pastry bag will, but it’ll come close! Try to make sure you have at least a centimeter of plastic around the top of the tip where it opens out into the bag. This will discourage breakage around the rim of the tip.
Step 4. Make a Makeshift Pastry Bag
Use your packing or masking tape to firmly tape where the bag ends and the metal tip peeks from the bag. Make sure you tape completely around the tip! I recommend masking tape but didn’t have any on-hand so packing tape works well as a substitute. (Masking tape is easier to rip with your hands.)
Roll the top of the plastic bag outward and down to make it easier to load your dough into. Ta-da! You’ve got yourself a makeshift pastry bag.
Step 5. Make the Churros Pastry Strips
Scrape your now-cool dough as best as you can from the pot and into your makeshift pastry bag. The best way to do this is to hold the bag as if it were an ice cream cone, then to add the dough with a spoon like you’re scooping ice cream into a cone.
You can see the “ice cream cone” hold in the picture above. Make sure to squeeze the dough downward and into the metal tip ’til it’s ready to go!
Step 6. Fry the Churros Pastry Strips
Now it’s frying time! Roll up the sides of your pastry bag until the bag is open, then twist it at the center of the dough. We’re creating pressure in the bag so that it’s less work for us when we squeeze the dough into the frying pan.
Next, place the tip of the pastry bag above your oil (I hover my bag a few inches above the frying pan). Start squeezing the dough from the top of where you initially twisted the bag – the most bulbous part of the bag at this point – and the dough will drop directly into the oil. Draw a straight line toward you while applying the same amount of pressure on the bag until your dough is 6-8 inches long. Then, use your finger or a knife to separate the stick of dough from your piping bag; this will drop the end of the dough into the oil as well. The oil should mostly cover your churros; if not, make sure to flip them over as you see the ridges start to brown.
I fried three at a time, but feel free to handle even more at once if you prefer!
Step 7. Coat Churros in Sugar
Once your churros are golden-brown (~ 1 minute), use a pair of tongs or chopsticks to carefully remove the churros from the oil and onto a plate lined with paper towels.
Pour the 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 Tbsp. cinnamon onto a plate (I used a baking pan with raised sides) and mix! Using chopsticks or tongs, roll the churro from side to side to coat it in cinnamon sugar. Make sure to get sugar in all of the nice ridges, nooks, and crannies made by piping the dough with the star tip!
Step 8. Serve
Serve immediately while still warm. Or just serve them to yourself, which is my favorite way of having churros.
As I previously mentioned, I tried a bunch of different ingredient combinations and preparations before coming up with this recipe and found that these simple ingredients and methods really are the best way to make churros. No need for butter, eggs, or milk; no need for complicated movements like stirring while slowly adding flour or kneading. I can get into specifics regarding the different recipes I tested, but I won’t bore you. (Well, I can if you’d like, but I’ll refrain for now.)
Step 9. Enjoy!
I recommend pairing these churros with ice cream, chocolate syrup, dulce de leche, strawberry jam, the sky’s the limit when it comes to this amazing dessert! Have fun and save a lot of room in your stomach; these churros are addictive and you won’t be able to stop!
You might also want to check out this homemade churros recipe by Gordon Ramsey in this video from The F Word:
Isn’t it fun to make homemade churros recipe? Now you know how to make the best homemade churros recipe ever. It’s the best when it’s homemade and specially crafted by you, with love! We hope you enjoy making this homemade churros recipe just as we did!
Will you give this homemade churros recipe a try? We’d to know how it will go. Share your experience with us in the comments section below!
Up Next: How to Make Mouthwatering Mini Cinnamon Sugar Donuts
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 22, 2015, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
Can the batter be prepared before hand (about a day in advance) and kept in the refirigorater until frying?