Daring Bakers: Churros FAIL!

I was incredibly thrilled when I read this month’s challenge. I adore doughnuts, and there are so many types from my childhood that I’ve been wishing to replicate. The wide-open nature of the challenge was extremely appealing, and I decided to take it at its word and try some totally new things. First stop? Spanish churros. Not the icky, fluffy, cinnamon covered gobs of dough called churros in America. The lovely golden crispy-outside light-inside Spanish ones. Naturally, I had to do dipping chocolate to match. The dipping chocolate is “hot chocolate”– essentially a warm chocolate pudding that is just barely liquid enough to be drinkable but is really just meant for dunking hot doughnuts. Mmmmm. Anyway, I put off making the churros until last Saturday so that my sister would be here to share the sweet, crisp, totally fattening goodness with me. I really to love her that much. Unfortunately, waiting was a mistake. The recipe that looked so good on paper was a travesty in execution. The exteriors got appropriately crisp but the inside was a bizzarely eggy mush. Words cannot express the sadness. To make matters worse, I’d decided to try a traditional Moroccan street doughnut, sfinges, as a sort of backup. Again, fail. (These were a yeast doughnut similar to the recipe listed and intended to be my “safe” bet.) Although fine as doughnuts, they were not nearly as fluffy or, I hate to admit, greasy as they should have been. Bad morning for me, but we survived and comforted ourselves on the delicious hot chocolate. Try it, you’ll like it. Oh, and if anyone out there has a good recipe for REAL churros, please share! The Daring Baker’s month may be up, but don’t think I’m done with you, churros. You can run but you can’t hide. 🙂

Thick Hot Chocolate for dipping
4oz dark chocolate, chopped
2 cups milk
1 tbsp cornstarch (also known as cornflour and is the powder that causes the thickening)
4 tbsp sugar
Melt the chocolate with one cup of milk in a small saucepan. Stir together the cornstarch and sugar, then blend them with the remaining cold milk and add to the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking steadily, until thickened. Serve hot.

Blog-checking lines: The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious. Really, go try her recipes. I’m sure you’ll do better than I did.