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Munchoro

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Seven steps, real measures

The Method

Section through a churro, drawn at twenty times actual size.

Fig. 1: section A-A through a Munchoro churro, an eight-tooth star 9.5 mm across the points with radii of 4.75 mm and 3.4 mm, beside a side elevation 23 cm long with a square scissor-cut end.
Fig. 1, section through a Munchoro churro, ×20

This is how every Munchoro churro has been made since the first batch in the spring of 2016, written down by Marisol with the numbers she actually uses. Change any one of them, the 250 ml, the 9.5 mm star, the 375°F, and you can taste it in the first bite.

Step 1

The Boil

Water, butter, sugar and salt go into the pan together and come up to a rolling boil, a real one, with the butter fully melted into it. This is my grandmother's ratio of water to flour, and there is no egg in it. Egg gives you something softer and cakier. Without the egg the dough fries up crisp rather than cakey, and holds its eight ridges in the oil.

250ml

Water

  • Butter30 g
  • Sugar6 g
  • SaltA pinch

Step 2

The Flour

Pan off the heat, and all the flour in at once. Not in stages: all of it, in one go. Then 90 seconds of hard beating until the dough pulls together into one ball and leaves the sides of the pan clean. If it is still sticking to the pan, it is not done, however tired your arm is.

150g

Flour, all at once

90sec

Of beating, off the heat

Step 3

The Rest

Twelve minutes on the bench. The dough drops to about 140°F, which is the point I wait for: warm enough to go through the nozzle without a fight, cool enough that the ridges stay sharp once they are piped. Too hot and they slump in the oil. Too cold and the dough fights the bag.

12min

On the bench

140°F

Dough temperature to pipe

Step 4

The Pipe

The nozzle is a 9.5 mm open star with 8 teeth. I pipe straight into the oil, not onto a tray first, and cut each length at 23 cm with a pair of kitchen scissors held right over the fryer. A square cut end fries evenly. A torn end goes ragged and greasy.

Side elevation of a churro, 23 cm long, with ridge lines along its length and a square scissor-cut end.
Fig. 2, the cut length, side elevation
9.5mm

Open star, 8 teeth

23cm

Cut with scissors

Step 5

The Fry

The oil is at 375°F. Each churro takes 90 to 110 seconds, depending on how full the fryer is, and I turn each one once, with a long chopstick, at the halfway point. Once. Turning it more knocks the oil about and the color comes out patchy.

The oil is changed every 600 churros, and always before an event, whatever it fried the day before.

375°F

Oil temperature

90-110sec

Turned once, halfway

Step 6

The Sugar

Out of the oil and stood upright for 30 seconds, so the oil runs off rather than soaking back in. Then rolled in 4 parts sugar to 1 part cinnamon while the surface is still just tacky enough to take it. Eight sharp ridges hold a lot of sugar. That is the whole point of having eight.

30sec

Drained upright

4to1

Sugar to cinnamon

Step 7

The Hand-Over

Served within 4 minutes of leaving the oil, at the stand or at your party.

That is why nothing is fried ahead. About 20 minutes after it leaves the oil a churro goes soft, and the crackle you came for is gone. So the dough waits in the bag, the oil waits at 375°F, and the churro goes in when somebody is standing there to take it.

Marisol

4min

Oil to hand, at most

See it done

Come and Watch It Happen

Steps 4 to 7 happen in front of you at the stand, Wednesday to Sunday at the covered market, and at the cart wherever it is frying that evening.

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