Churros con Chocolate

Ingredients

• 12⅓ ozwheat flourfor the dough
• 2 cupswaterfor the dough, brought to the boil
• ½ tspsaltfor the dough
• 4¼ cupsoilvegetable oil or frying fat, heated to about 180 °C
• 7 ozdark chocolateor dark couverture, roughly chopped, for melting
• 4 tbspicing sugarfor dusting the finished churros
• 2 tbspsugarfor sweetening the hot chocolate or for coating the churros
• 4¼ cupsmilkfor drinkable hot chocolate (optional)
• ½ tspcornstarchto lightly thicken the hot chocolate, mixed with cold milk (optional)

Method

1. Bring the water and salt to a rolling boil in a saucepan.
2. Tip the flour into the boiling water all at once and stir it in, or pour the hot water over the flour instead. Beat or knead everything vigorously into a smooth, firm dough.
3. Roughly chop the dark chocolate and melt it in a bowl set over a pan of hot water, sweeten it with a little sugar to taste and keep it warm. For a drinkable version, dissolve the chocolate in hot milk instead and thicken it lightly with cornstarch stirred into a splash of cold milk.
4. Heat the frying fat in a tall, deep pan to about 355 °F. Hold the handle of a wooden spoon in the fat; when small bubbles rise around it, the fat is hot enough.
5. Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe strips about 8 cm long straight into the hot fat, snipping the dough off at the nozzle as you go.
6. Fry the churros in batches until golden brown, turning them once so they colour evenly all over.
7. Lift the finished churros out with a slotted spoon and leave them to drain on kitchen paper.
8. While they're still warm, dust the churros with powdered sugar or roll them in sugar.
9. Serve the churros straight away, warm, with the chocolate for dipping.

Tips and variations

If you like a richer churro, make a choux-style dough with butter and eggs instead of the plain flour-and-water version, or add a little oil to the water for the dough. If piping straight into hot fat makes you nervous, pipe the strips onto greased baking paper first and slide them into the fat from there; this works for little rings, too. Rolled in vanilla sugar, the churros pick up a lovely fragrance. To serve, set a small bowl of melted milk chocolate couverture and a few pieces of fruit next to the dark chocolate for dipping.