Churros!

As part of the long weekend/small plates deal, I took on dessert. Churros with Spanish style hot chocolate, to be precise. If it weren't for the bad idea of making it all a-la-minute (I had unfounded fears of making both parts ahead of time, and them not reheating properly) then I would count it all as success! Unfortunately it stressed me out a little, I got oil splatter burns up my arm, broke my cookie gun, and we didn't eat them til 11pm.

1. For the Churros: I followed this recipe, but it proved too tough to push through the cookie gun, who's fault that is I don't know, but if I was to use that thing again I'd make the dough a lot softer and hope that it still all holds together once it hits the oil. After breaking the gun I ended up just rolling some out into rough looking tubes by hand and crankily throwing them in the pan. They still worked! I should've done that from the start. Something to watch out for - exploding churros! This is how I got splattered with hot oil :(


2. For the Chocolate: I had a few recipes I tried for this, none of which were particularly great so it ended up being a bit of a mongrel in the end. A delicious mongrel, though. Something along the lines of:

• Bring milk to a boil & stir in chocolate, add a cinnamon stick & split vanilla pod (this isn't necessary really but it always feels nice to use a real life vanilla.)
  
• Stir in a mix of corn flour + water (so there isn't lumps of flour) over a low heat until it thickens to be something you can dip your fried things into.
• Ladle into cups, wonder what you are going to do with such a massive pot of leftover hot chocolate, make a mental note to not make so freakin much of it next time.