How To Make Homemade Churros (+VIDEO)

Today, I'm sharing how to make incredibly delicious homemade churros from scratch in some simple steps!

Homemade churros are incredibly delicious. It is crunchy outside and so soft, moist, and a bit chewy inside.
And you may be surprised to see how easy it is to make! You can whip up quickly for your friends and family.

In this blog, I'm sharing the crucial tips & tricks to make homemade churros

The churros is made from a dough called pâte à choux. A.K.A Choux Pastry, Pate choux etc.

To make choux pastry, first, heat liquids, salt, sugar, butter, and flour, and next, add eggs to it. It is a traditional dough often used to make some classic desserts such as cream puffs and eclairs.

Recently, I shared my cream puff recipe. Although they are both choux pastries, some of the amounts and ratios of the ingredients are different from each other. This is the recipe you can use for other basic choux desserts such as eclair, paris-brest, etc.

Jump to:

• 📌 What's In homemade churros?
• 📌 Frequently Asked Questions
• 📌 How To Make Homemade Churros
• 📌 Uses for Homemade Churros
• 📌 VIDEO: Homemade Churros
• 📌 The Printable Recipe
• Homemade Churros Recipe

📌 What's In homemade churros?

Pate choux

• Water
• Milk
  • It helps to color the surface more and add more crunchiness.
• Salt
  • It adds more depth in flavor.
• Granulated sugar
  • It helps to keep churros moist. It is not a lot of amounts since we coat sugar all around the churros.
• Vanilla beans
  • It matches so well with the cinnamon flavor.
• Cinnamon
  • it is essential for me when I make churros! The flavor is incredible.
• Unsalted butter
  • It adds rich flavor and a softer texture.
• All-purpose flour
  • It creates a soft yet chewy texture.
• Egg
  • It does the main role to create a soft texture.
• Oil
  • for deep-frying churros

Cinnamon sugar

• Cinnamon
• Granulated sugar

📍 The printable recipe is at the very end of this post.

Jump to Recipe

📌 Frequently Asked Questions

📌 How To Make Homemade Churros

Preparation

Everything moves so quickly once you start making the dough. So prepare everything you can beforehand:

1. Warm the egg until it feels slightly warm. 
2. Sift all-purpose flour.
3. Set up your star tip in a pastry bag.
4. Set aside parchment paper.
5. Pour oil into a pan.
6. Make cinnamon sugar.

By using a slightly warm egg, it’ll be easier for you to pipe the dough later.

If this was for cream puff, I need to add about 8 eggs here. But I am using 5 eggs for churros. It’s a less amount:

Why we add fewer eggs for churros than for cream puffs:

1. So that the dough does not get too soft to hold a nice shape in oil.
2. To create a unique churros texture that is soft but not too spongy.

And today I use all-purpose four instead of cake flour. By using all-purpose flour, you can create more crunchiness outside and a soft but slightly chewy texture inside.

I recommend you use a star tip to pipe the dough because:

• The dough gets cooked slightly faster than using a round tip.
• It also looks very pretty as well. 

Especially I love to use a French star tip! It creates a more fine zigzag pattern.

We use parchment paper when we pipe the dough. Set it aside for now.

You can use any regular oil to deep-fry them. I used olive oil as a healthier option!

Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon powder to make cinnamon sugar.

Step 1: Add water, milk, salt, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and butter to a pot.

In a pot, add water, milk, salt, sugar, vanilla beans, cinnamon, and butter.

I am adding more sugar today than in my cream puff recipe:

• To add a little bit of sweetness inside.
• Sugar also helps to make the texture more moist and soft.

Scrape off all the vanilla beans from the pod. The flavor of vanilla beans matches so well with cinnamon. You can also add vanilla extract instead.

Cut butter into smaller pieces so that they completely melt by the time the liquids start boiling.

Step 2. Heat the pot.

And heat it at medium-high heat until it starts boiling hard. 

Turn your pot sometimes and make the temperature even.

Heat the oil:

I usually start heating oil around here at the same time so that by the time the dough is piped and ready, you can deep-fly them right away. You can start heating a little later too, adjust the timing accordingly!

Once the water and milk are boiling hard all over, remove the pot from the heat right away so that the liquids are not evaporating too much.

Step 3: Add flour to the pot and mix.

Add flour to the hot liquids and mix well until it forms a ball and gets doughy. 

Step 4: Heat the pot again to cook the flour.

And heat the pot again with medium heat to cook starch in the flour. By cooking starch, the dough gets more stretchy which allows the dough to rise more. And that leads to a softer texture.

Push and spread the dough to cook flour evenly. And flip and repeat!

To judge if it's cooked enough, there are ways to check:

• The dough gets slightly softer.
• You’ll see a thin skin formed on the bottom of your pot. (Not with a non-stick pan)
• Nice sizzling sound all around the pod. 
• The dough is about 80C. (If you want to use a thermometer!)
• Time: How long it takes depends on the amount of the dough and the strength of the heat etc, but with one batch of this recipe, it takes over 1 minute to 1.5 minutes(Medium heat). (With my cream puff recipe, the amount was half of this. So I cooked for about 1 minute or so.)

Check with not just one but with more than a few ways for better accuracy!

Step 5: Mix the dough with a pedal.

And move it into a bowl and knead a little bit, about 45 seconds or so. By doing that:

1. We can make sure they are even.
2. The temperature goes down just slightly so that eggs are not getting cooked.

You can use a spatula instead if you don’t have a stand mixer. (knead less if you are making a half batch.)

Step 6: Add egg and mix.

And add about ⅓ or a little less than a half amount of eggs. And mix well. If you add a small amount of egg here at the beginning, it can get cooked partially. So you can add a generous amount!

The egg does not blend well at the beginning and looks very separated like in the image below. But keep going! It'll come together gradually.

Once it looks combined, add the rest, dividing it into a few more times.

Mix until the dough looks completely even. 

And because we added less egg than we do for cream puffs, the texture looks a lot firmer.
And That might make you feel like.. is this doughy thing gonna be good??? But no worry, this turns into an incredibly delicious treat. With some magic from oil and sugar. 😉 That's the secret!

Step 7: Pipe and deep-fry them!

Heat the oil to 170-175 C | 338-347 F.
Ideally, the oil reaches the temperature right before when you are ready to pipe. Adjust the timing!

How to pipe: Method 1

As a simple way, you can pipe directly into the hot oil. And cut with a scissor to detach it.

Sticks

You can pipe longer to make sticks or cute one-bite balls.

Balls

Just be careful not to spill the oil when you drop them and burn yourself!!

How to pipe: Method 2

If you want to enjoy creating many shapes and have fun, pipe them on parchment paper first. 

Small tip: Attach some of the dough on the tray as glue and place parchment paper on top so that the paper does not move around when you pipe.

Straight sticks

By using parchment paper, you can pipe a perfectly straight long stick!

And again, cut the edge with a scissor. 

Pretzel shape

Create any shapes you like! This is my favorite, pretzel shape.

When you are done piping, cut the parchment paper around the dough with a scissor and dip the whole thing in oil. 

By doing that:

• You can avoid the risk to touch the oil directly.
• You can deep-fry them without messing up the shape.

No need to rush to take out the paper because you don’t want to mess up the shape. 

Once the dough is cooked slightly, it’ll be easier for you to slide that out. It comes off easily.

Flip them sometimes to color them evenly.

Take them out when they are nicely golden brown.

Swirls

When you flip larger churros like this, make sure that the surface is cooked enough before you flip so that you won't mess up the surface!

I LOVE the nice sizzling sound.... it is so relaxing and satisfying to deep-fry them!

Heart shape

I made some hearts as the final shape.

Step 8: Coat cinnamon sugar.

As a final step, coat cinnamon sugar all around the churros. And enjoy!!!

📌 Uses for Homemade Churros

Churros might be something you eat only at theme parks or carnivals. At least That was me. But once you know that homemade churros taste incredible and it is so easy to make, you might want to make them over and over for your family and friends.

And I bet Everyone is going to love it!

Maybe you can wrap it nicely and bring some for some gathering?? like a movie night with friends, hang-out with moms and the kids, or picnic time with your date. So many fun ways to enjoy!

P.S. My daughter LOVED it too. Finger-licking good ;P

📌 VIDEO: Homemade Churros

You can also learn how to make homemade churros visually to have a better understanding of all.

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📌 The Printable Recipe

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