Hmm, blogging Monday seems to gradually becoming blogging Tuesday, apologies chaps.

I’ve been on my travels up and down the country recently (well, mainly side to side actually). So not a huge amount of crafting has been a-happening.

One such weekend was spent with some of my bests in NW London, and at brunch time I took my camera out and started snapping. We decided that churros bites  were the order of the day (if you don’t know what churros are, then you’ve not really lived yet, fact).

None of us had made them before and at least one of us was terrified by the prospect of a pan fire (no deep fat fryer for us). It was actually gob-smackingly easy and very fun, so go on, have a go.

You will need

1 cup Water

2 and 1/2 tbsp Caster sugar (plus some for coating)

1/2 tsp Salt

1 cup Plain flour

1L Vegetable oil

Ground cinnamon (for coating)

100-200g Chocolate (for dipping)

Serves 4 (recipe sourced at allrecipes.com)

Step one

In a saucepan combine the cup of water, 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, salt, and 2 tbsp vegetable oil.

Heat over a medium heat until sugar has dissolved and mixture comes to the boil.

Step two

Take water off the heat and pour in a cup of plain flour.

Step two and a half

Stir stir stir.

The mix will a) get too heavy for a whisk very quickly b) get very lumpy very quickly c) look plain wrong.

Persevere though, if you keep mixing you will manage to smooth it out considerably in a matter of minutes. I promise.

Step three

Heat the rest of the oil in a sizeable pan. SLOWLY.

You want it to be on no more than a medium heat the whole time, and this will take a while. You know the oil is at the right temperature when you drop a little mixture in and it bubbles and floats rather than sinking to the bottom.

Step four

Fill a large piping bag with the mix and squeeze to the end.

A star shaped nozzle will give you the most authentic looking churros, but I would advise a fairly small one. Ours was the biggest in the pack, and the chunkiness turned our churros into churros bites fairly early on…we didn’t want to end up with only 4 massive ones…less space for the chocolate that way.

Step five

Pipe into the pan. We had one person piping and another using a pair of scissors to snip the mixture in at a desired length. Manageable with one person though I suspect – if you don’t have a helper.

This is where you need to keep an eye on the heat because if you’re not careful you risk cooking/burning the outside and then having uncooked dough within. We learned by doing on this one!

So keep the pan on a low-medium heat and just cook them by eye. Even the most novice chef can see when one of these is ready.

Step six

Lift the churros out of the pan and drain on a plate covered with a few sheets of kitchen roll.

A slotted spoon would be ideal for this if you have one.

Step seven

Cover another plate in caster sugar and cinnamon (adjust quantities to taste), and roll drained churros around until coated in the mix.

Step eight

Stack em high!

Step nine

While the churros are cooking, draining, and being coated, task somebody with melting the chocolate.

Do this in the microwave and don’t get impatient. A 30 second blast followed by some 10 seconds with stirring in between will do the trick.

Step ten

Eat until you can’t move.