churros con tsokolate


There was a time in my teen age life where all I thought about was Gaia Moore. Gaia Moore is the female protagonist in one of Francine Pascal’s book series Fearless. The Fearless series made me scrap all of my SVH (Sweet Valley High)collection (also by Francine Pascal) and focus on Gaia’s life. She was a teenager born without the fear gene (hence fearless). Back then that kind of premise sounded really outstretched but now with the slew of SciFi TV shows it’s not that hard to get into anymore.
Perhaps Gaia was a part of an experiment? Her family was after all were/are some kind of super spies/ double agents.
Well, I could tell you a lot more but the thing about Gaia that I loved the most is her undeniable “eat-all-I-can-sweets” habit. She loved junk food and sweet treats. She really does. She even buys a one dozen Krispy Kreme and gulps them in one go in Central Park. I tried that, with Dunkin’ Donuts (there was no Krispy Kreme in the Philippines at that time) and I conclude it is best left poetically prettier in books.
One of the memorable is the churros scene.So as I went on and left my teen age life behind I kept a few of her habits for myself.
Here’s a recipe for churros that involved a lot of dipping in hot cocoa.
tsokolate in a cupita
Churros
2 cups water
1 cup unsalted softened butter
pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)*
8 whole eggs
Paste: Boil together water, butter and salt. Stir in flour and sugar. Stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball. After about 1 minute remove from heat.
Add eggs one at a time. Continue stirring until smooth. Spoon mixture into a piping bag with a star tip (large-sized).
Deep fry.
Hot cocoa (Kablon Farms tablea)
1 tablet 10 g tablea
1 cup water 180 ml
milk sugar to taste
Finely chop the tablea and place it in a saucepan with salt(a pinch) and water. Melt over low heat stirring constantly and taking care it does not burn. When the chocolate is smooth and shiny stir in milk and sugar, bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Be careful because the chocolate will bubble up and thicken rapidly.
Serve hot.
So now it’s time to have that afternoon churro con tsokolate merienda (snack).
churro cocoon
YOU WOULD NOTICE that the churros’ shape doesn’t look anything that came from a piping bag with star tip.
Yes, it did not. You see after placing the paste in my piping bag (which isn’t really a piping bag but a re-purposed thick plastic bag) it burst after piping one flimsy lame 2 inch churro. So since I was in a very dire (with a smoking hot oil in front of me) situation I pulled the closest shaping kitchen utensil I could find, which was vegetable cutter.
At first once I saw the finished product I thought of cocoon. The thing that births a butterfly, those pretty fluttering things that wander about in the garden on a misty morning. They do look like cocoons don’t they?
I suppose you may eat these with melted chocolate milky bars instead but nah, this is way more precious. You may also just sprinkle powdered sugar.
So, now that you the cup of hot cocoa and plate of just fried churro in front of you, time to eat. Dip a piece into the hot cocoa, savor the sweet warm sensation. Yes, that’s it. Now, continue popping this rich fried (Thank you Spain for creating these treats) dough into your mouth.
Have a nice day.
*The recipe I based this from (The Mandarin Oriental Hotel via Food magazine) did not specify what type of sugar they used (It was either white or brown, I presumed) but since we have been using brown sugar for years, I used that.