Churros with hot chocolate: the Spanish breakfast after a long night
In Madrid they are eaten for breakfast or at dawn after a night out, dipped in chocolate so thick it is almost a custard. The dough is essentially choux paste without eggs, so it does not puff in the air but forms a crisp, ridged shell around a soft centre. Two things are non-negotiable: a star nozzle, because the ridges give more crisp surface and let steam escape, and oil at exactly 180 °C.
Your own work in that: 55 min.
- Dough 15 min
- Chocolate 15 min
- Frying 25 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneCook the dough
Boil the water with the butter, sugar and salt (about 5 minutes). Once boiling, take it off the heat, tip in all the flour at once and beat with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes, until you have a smooth, firm ball that leaves the sides. It will be much stiffer than choux — that is right, because without eggs it must hold its shape in the oil.
Ingredients: 250 ml water · 250 g plain flour · 30 g butter · 1 tbsp sugar · ½ tsp salt · 1000 ml oil for frying
TipAdd the flour in one movement, not gradually. Sprinkled in bit by bit it forms lumps that are very hard to beat out of hot dough.
A firm ball leaving the sides of the panCool slightly and fill the bag
Pack the dough tightly, with no air pockets, into a sturdy piping bag with a large star nozzle (at least 1 cm across) and leave 10 minutes. Dough that is too hot strains the bag and scalds your hands, while slightly cooled dough pipes sharper ridges that hold in the oil. Make the chocolate meanwhile.
TipSmooth churros from a round nozzle are more likely to burst and spit in hot oil, because the steam has no way out; the ridges spread it evenly and give more crisp crust. The star is a technical requirement, not decoration.
A big star nozzle, at least a centimetreMake the dipping chocolate
Slake the starch in a few spoons of cold milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil (about 5 minutes), add the broken chocolate and stir until melted, add the starch and cook 2 minutes, until as thick as a sauce. Sweeten to taste, cover and set aside; just before serving warm it briefly, stirring, and pour into small cups.
Ingredients: 400 ml milk · 150 g dark chocolate, 70 % · 1 tbsp potato starch · 2 tbsp sugar
TipSpanish dipping chocolate is deliberately thick, almost like a custard. A thin one runs straight off the churro back into the cup and the whole point of dipping is lost.
Thick as a sauce; the spoon leaves a trailHeat the oil to 180 °C
In a pan about 20 cm across heat the oil (about 3 cm deep) to 180 °C. Without a thermometer: a scrap of dough should surface within 2 seconds and bubble briskly. Cooler oil soaks in, hotter oil burns the ridges before the middle cooks.
Dough surfaces in two seconds and bubblesPipe straight into the oil
Pipe 15 cm lengths directly over the pot, cutting them off with scissors. Fry 4–5 at a time for 3 minutes, turning once, until deep gold — in batches, about 20 minutes in all. Lift them onto a rack if you can — on kitchen paper the underside steams and softens.
Ingredients: 250 ml water · 250 g plain flour · 30 g butter · 1 tbsp sugar · ½ tsp salt · 1000 ml oil for frying
TipDip the scissors in oil so the dough doesn't cling to them. Pipe away from yourself so no hot oil splashes back onto your hand.
Roll in cinnamon sugar
Mix the sugar and cinnamon on a flat plate. Roll the churros while hot, within a minute of leaving the oil: only then does the sugar cling to the ridges. Once cool you can only dust them, which is not the same thing. Serve at once, with the hot chocolate for dipping.
Ingredients: 100 g sugar · 2 tsp cinnamon
Hot, within a minute, or the sugar won't hold
Before you start
Eat them immediately
Churros are at their best for a quarter of an hour or so after frying. After that the shell absorbs moisture from the inside and goes soft. This dessert genuinely cannot be made ahead.
Porras, the thicker version
Porras are a thicker variety made from a looser dough, often with a little bicarbonate, fried as one large spiral and cut only after frying. Fry thicker pieces a little longer at a slightly lower temperature, about 170 °C, so the centre has time to cook.
Filled
Once cooled, fill them with dulce de leche or chocolate cream through a narrow nozzle pushed into one end. Filled churros are especially popular in Latin America.
What not to do
Don't add eggs "for lightness" — classic Spanish churros are made without them, and a soft choux-style dough soaks up oil and loses its crunch. Watch out for air pockets in the bag too: they are what makes churros burst and spit in the oil, so pack the dough tightly and pipe evenly, without breaks.
