Bonus: Churros (with guest baker Harper)

This is our first guest baker feature! Harper is a home baking enthusiast from here in the Denver area and wanted to learn how to make churros. Churros are a lovely pate a choux dough that you fry and then dust with sugar. How can you not love that? 

Ingredients
1 cup of water
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup of all purpose flour
2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups vegetable oil (for frying)
Sugar to dust, plus cinnamon if you are partial to cinnamon sugar which we definitely are

Preheat the oil in a deep saucepan to 360 degrees while you make the batter. I use a candy thermometer to make sure the temperature is spot on. 

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter in with the water, salt, and sugar. Once it comes to a rolling boil, throw in all the flour and beat with a wooden spoon or spatula to dry out the dough. 

Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the eggs one at a time. Keep mixing until the egg is completely integrated into the dough. It will separate and look funky at first and then come together. Add the vanilla with the second egg. Place the dough in a pastry bag fitted with a closed star shaped tip. 

Since I don't have the heat tolerance required to pipe churro batter directly into the hot oil I pipe them onto parchment and then put them in the oil parchment side up and pull the parchment out as soon as it releases... about 1 second. This ensures they maintain most of their shape. You can make them any length that will fit in your oil, ours were about 6 inches long and then a variety of letters, hearts, flowers, etc. Prep a plate or pan with a few layers of paper towel for the churros to drain after frying, and put the sugar (and cinnamon if you are using it) in a tray for rolling/dusting post fry.

Fry the churros for about 2-3 minutes per side, the second side is usually quicker so about 4-5 minutes total, until they are golden brown. Handle as little as possible in the oil. 

Once golden and cooked through, remove from the oil and place on a paper towel to drain briefly and roll/toss in the sugar mixture. Enjoy!