Churros

Churros are a confection made by piping a dough of flour worked with hot water through a star-shaped nozzle into oil and frying it. Their surface is marked with fine grooves, and they are widely enjoyed, from Spanish breakfasts to Mexican street stalls. Even with a simple formula that uses no eggs or milk, the shape of the nozzle and the movement of the hands while piping give them their distinctive form. The thick porras differ in formula, shaping and the way they are cut.

A dough worked with boiling water that keeps its firmness

The basic Spanish formula centers on wheat flour, water and salt, and some versions add a little oil. Eggs, milk and butter are not essential. When the water comes to a boil, the flour is added all at once and quickly mixed to make a firm, smooth dough. Besides adding the flour to the water in the pot, some specialist shops follow a method of pouring boiling water onto the flour all at once and working it.

Working flour with hot liquid is similar to choux pastry, but both the formula and the finish differ from the shell of a choux cream puff, which has eggs added afterward and is puffed in the oven. With churros, the firm dough is extruded, and in the oil the outside dries while the inside cooks through. The dough itself has little sweetness; the sugar added after frying and the drinks served alongside supply the sweetness.

The star-shaped nozzle and the movement of the hands while piping

After the dough has cooled slightly, it is put into an extruder called a churrera. Passing through a star-shaped nozzle, it becomes a long rod of dough with continuous ridges and grooves. Compared with a round rod of the same thickness, the surface has more ridges and hollows, and the edges in contact with the oil dry first, giving a crisp bite. The moisture inside turns to steam with the heat, so the outside turns out crisp and the interior soft. Because the firm dough is pushed with steady force, a tool sturdier than the thin bags used for piping cream is used.

The maker cuts the dough as it emerges and either leaves it as a straight stick or joins the two ends. There were also traditional churreras that were braced against the shoulder and pushed with the strength of the arms and body. The shape is determined not only by bending the finished stick afterward, but by the movement of the hands at the moment the dough comes out of the nozzle.

Once fried, they are drained of oil, sprinkled with sugar and served immediately. In Madrid, too, the sugar-sprinkled style is popular. Biting into one fresh from the fryer, you taste the dry, crisp skin together with the soft interior of the hot-water dough.

Churros bent into loops. The nozzle ridges and sugar are visible on the surface. Photo: Juan Emilio Prades Bel, 2024-11-11, location unknown. Original image / CC BY 4.0. Downscaled version from the distributing source; no additional processing.

Porras: large spirals fried by two people

In Madrid, thin, folded-back churros are sold alongside thick porras. Some recipes (formulations and methods) for porras add a leavening agent such as baking soda; the dough is rested and then fried in a large spiral. They differ not only in thickness, but also in a formula that makes the interior rise and in the way they are shaped and cut.

When making a large spiral, one person may extrude the dough continuously while another turns the dough in the oil with a long stick. The whole spiral is flipped to fry both sides, then taken out and divided with scissors or a knife. The movements in front of the fryer also differ between small churros fried one at a time and large porras made from one continuous length.

The shepherd legend and the theory of an origin in Chinese youtiao

In the story that shepherds fried them outdoors in place of bread, the fact that they can be made with only fire and oil, without an oven, is tied to the name, which is linked to the horns of the Churra breed of sheep that they resemble. Another theory holds that Portuguese navigators brought back youtiao, a long, thin Chinese fried dough, which was then adapted in Iberia to a star-shaped nozzle.

However, youtiao is made by frying two strips of dough joined together and is eaten as a savory breakfast. Churros are made by piping and frying a hot-water dough and are eaten sweet, so the methods differ. Food historians note that 15th-century Iberia already had fried hot-water doughs such as cohombros, and they question the theory of a one-way introduction from China. A Spanish-language dictionary also explains the confection’s name as onomatopoeic, and does not treat the sheep’s name as the established etymology.

Records of fried confections and specialist shops in Madrid

In Madrid, a 1621 application to raise the price of fried confections made from flour and oil survives. These are thought to have been buñuelos or something similar, and the name churros does not yet appear. By an 1887 business application, a “churro-making establishment” is explicitly named. This shows that by this time, among the shops selling fried confections, there were shops that specialized in making churros.

Breakfast drinks and regional fillings

In Spain, churros are eaten at breakfast or at merienda, the afternoon snack, with thick chocolate or café con leche, and also with chocolate on the morning of New Year’s Day. In contrast to Madrid’s thin folded-back churros and thick porras, in Mexico they are coated with sugar, and some are also injected with cajeta or chocolate. In Buenos Aires, churros filled with dulce de leche and dipped in thick chocolate are also eaten for breakfast. They differ in fried shape, filling and the time of day they are eaten, and are enjoyed at street stalls and shops in each place.

Churros being sold in Coyoacán, Mexico City. Ridged fried confections are lined up at the stall. Photo: Ehécatl Cabrera, 2011-02-12, Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the distributing source; no additional processing.

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