The Essential Gluten Free Guide To Spain
Growing up, I thought Spanish food was tapas. I didnt have access to many other Spanish dishes or influences, and the ones that stood out were of the pintxos variety. But as with any country deeply influenced by a history of discovery and conquest, as well as a large geographic area, the regional specialties vary widely. Geography, climate, waves of invaders, and conquests of new territories all went into creating the Spanish cuisine we know and love today. For celiacs, the country is full of quality base ingredients and interesting meals. For this gluten free Spain guide, I am focusing on the dishes and cooking techniques that are safe, as well as some spots to try in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain.
Matt Golding, author of Grape, Olive, Pig: Deep Travels Through Spains Food Culture, a notes in a December 2016 interview that:
Food is very important in Spain, and many restaurants can accommodate a celiac diet with ease. As with my Portugal guide, this post is built to remove anxiety around ordering, and help you tackle the meals of Spain with joy.
A note about eating times: Spanish people eat late. Dinner often starts around 8pm, and if you go then youll likely be the only ones in the restaurant. Snack foods were the ones with the most wheat in them, so my advice to celiacs who are used to eating a bit earlier would be to stock up on snack at your hotel or apartment, so you can hold off until dinner.
Gluten Free Churros And Chocolate Dipping Sauce
Valentines Day is almost here and I invited my amazingly talented friend Meg from Beard +Bonnet to share one of her favorite love-inducing desserts. If you havent read her blog, now my friends, is the time! Her beautiful photography and tasty recipes are some of my favorites on the web. Im talking Vegan Smores Sandwich Cookies, One Pot Weeknight Curry, and Pomegranate and Citrus Punch Bowl good. When youre done snooping over there though, come back and check out her recipe for cinnamon drenched churros with silky chocolate dipping sauce.you might have just found the Valentines Day dessert youve been looking for.
Gluten Free Churros and Chocolate Dipping Sauce
by Meg from Beard + Bonnet
I am so excited to be visiting Hola Jalapeño today! I have a serious crush on Kates food I wish I could sit at her dinner table and sip on Fizzy Mezcal Margaritas all the time. It would be epic and I might never leave, but for now since we live so far apart I will settle for hanging out for the day on her site. Its nice to meet all of you wonderful Hola Jalapeño readers. My name is Meg and I share recipes and stories about my familys culinary adventures over on Beard and Bonnet each week. Feel free to hop over and check out our tasty recipe archives, but for now lets talk about churros!
Crispy on the outside, but soft inside, totally gluten free churros drenched in cinnamon sugar and served with a melty, bittersweet chocolate dipping sauce.
- Yield:1 1/2 dozen 1x
How To Make Churros
Start by preparing your churros dough. In a small saucepan, add your oil, sugar, and water, and bring to the boil. Once boiling, remove from the heat and gently fold through the flour. Continue mixing until a thick dough remains, before transferring to a large piping bag fitted with a star tip.
Heat 1-2 inches of oil in a deep pot or saucepan. Test the oil is hot by adding a drop of the batter into it and seeing if it sizzles. Once hot, carefully pipe the dough into the pan, around 4-5 inches in length. Pipe 3-4 churros per batch and fry each one until golden brown. Once each batch of churros is cooked, let them sit on some paper towel, to soak up excess oil. After 1-2 minutes, quickly dip each one in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Enjoy with warm chocolate sauce.
To make the chocolate sauce, heat up the coconut cream until warm. Once warm, add in your chocolate and let it sit for 5 minutes, before whisking together until thick and smooth.
Read Also: Gluten Free Substitute For Bread Crumbs
Tools For Making Gluten
To make gluten-free churros easily at home, you need just a few kitchen tools:
- A ½-inch closed star piping tip. I prefer Ateco 846 or 847 .
- A piping bag or a plastic bag with the tip cut off for the piping tip.
- A large wide pot for frying. I like using a stockpot or large saucepan because the high sides keep the oil from splattering.
- A candy/deep-fry thermometer. Frying perfectly golden brown and crispy churros with a soft slightly chewy center that isn’t undercooked requires having your oil at the right temperature between 360°-365°F.
How Do You Store Churros
- To store: Leftover churros should be stored in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 2 weeks.
- To freeze: Place churros in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer for up to 6 months. Let them thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- To reheat: Churros are best reheated in a non-stick pan or oven, to maintain crispiness.
Also Check: Gluten Free English Muffins Publix
Where I Started In Making Gluten Free Churros
When researching how to make churros, I already knew that regular Americanized churros start with a choux paste. A choux paste, or pate a choux, is a dough or paste that is the basis for many French pastries, most famously cream puffs and eclairs.
And since I had just developed a gluten free cream puff, I decided to give the gluten free churro a go. With a few adjustments in the method, these wonderful gluten free churros are super easy to make and even easier to eat!!
I went a step further by making the sauces that go with those churros from Nomads Lounge. One is a creme anglaise, which is like a thinned-out pastry cream. And the other is a chili strawberry sauce, which is like a spicy strawberry jam. Now I see why they chose them because they are absolutely delicious with the churros!!
Tips For Shaping Churros
- A pastry bag with a metal tip will give you that classic outer texture, but a plastic bag with the edge cut off works as well.
- You want at least a 1 inch tip or hole, but any size will work as long as you remember you will get less or more depending on the size.
- Use a knife to cut off the batter in between pieces.
- I made my churros about 3 inches long, you can make them longer if you want.
- Chill the dough, this will help them to stay round.
- Baking the churros can result in one flat side, to try to avoid this you can flip them while baking.
- The shape is simply aesthetic, theyll taste great no matter what! But, if you really want that perfect round shape, frying them is your best option.
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How To Make Gluten
Begin by taking a large pot and adding about an inch deep of cooking oil to it. Set the heat to medium. The oil needs to heat up to between 350 and 375 F .
In a medium pot, combine the water, butter, and salt. Set the burner temp to medium and heat the mixture until the butter melts and the mixture starts to boil. If using salted butter, reduce the amount of salt added by half.
Next, pour in all of the gluten-free 1 to 1 four mix at once and stir. Stir really quickly, eventually, a dough will form. Keep stirring and pushing down on the dough, for about a minute which will help cook down some of the flour. Now remove it from the heat.
Now add the hot gluten-free churro dough to a bowl. Stir the dough until it cools down and is just barely warm but not hot anymore. It will take 5 to 10 minutes.
NOTE:If the dough is too hot it will cook the egg once we add the egg and you dont want that to happen.
Once the dough has cooled, add the egg and start stirring again. At first, it will seem like the egg doesnt want to mix in with the gluten-free churros dough, but eventually, it will.
You may use a stand mixer with a dough hook too if you like, this part is a bit of an arm workout. Make sure to use a sturdy spoon if you use a spoon because the dough is firm and may break the spoon if it isnt a wooden spoon or something sturdy like that.
Once the egg has been incorporated, the gluten-free churro dough is ready to go. Only 5 ingredients, pretty easy right?
The Origin Of Churros
First off, let me start by saying that these churros are NOTHING like the ones in Spain, at least according to my mom and dad. We used to live there when I was a very young kid and they said Spanish churros arent sweet at all.
What makes them sweet in Spain is the chocolate dipping sauce. Churros and chocolate are a famous pair. I even remember my high school Spanish textbook being named Churros y Chocolaté.
Cinnamon and sugar are also nowhere in the Spanish version of these fried little gems. Somewhere along the line they were added to the American version and they stuck, literally and figuratively. Haha! Im not sure if this is a Mexican version, Mexican-American version, or just an American thing. Regardless, theyre delicious!!
Read Also: Food For Life Gluten Free English Muffins
The Ultimate Sweet Spanish Street Snack Food Just Got Better With This Easy Make
Can anyone resist a freshly made churro? Test your guests with this gluten free churro recipe. It makes melt-in-your-mouth bites of piped goodness: crisp and crunchy on the outside, tender and fluffy on the inside, generously covered in cinnamon sugar and dipped in warm chocolate sauce for good measure. Serve them as sweet finger food at parties and special occasions. But make sure you make enough these doughy treats will be snaffled up fast.
What Is A Churro
For those who arent familiar with churros, they are snacks made of fried dough, covered in cinnamon and sugar. While they have similarities to donuts, the texture is crispier on the outside, and not as doughy on the inside. They are most often served with a chocolate dipping sauce.
Churros have a sweet and light cinnamon flavor, without being overpowering. Originally of Spanish origin, they are now a popular dessert in many western countries!
Also Check: Publix Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Where Can I Buy Churros Recipes
| 2 quarts vegetable oil for frying |
| 1 cup water |
Steps:
- In a heavy deep skillet or deep-fryer, heat oil to 360 degrees F . Oil should be about 1 1/2 inches deep.
- In a medium saucepan, heat water and margarine to a rolling boil. Combine the flour and salt stir into the boiling mixture. Reduce heat to low and stir vigorously until the mixture forms a ball, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs one at a time. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip.
- Carefully squeeze out 4 inch long strips of dough directly into the hot oil. Fry 3 or 4 strips at once, until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove from hot oil to drain on paper towels. Stir together the sugar and cinnamon roll churros in the mixture while still hot.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 134.2 calories, Carbohydrate 6.2 g, Cholesterol 23.3 mg, Fat 11.7 g, Fiber 0.2 g, Protein 1.4 g, SaturatedFat 1.8 g, Sodium 77.2 mg, Sugar 2.2 g
How To Make Churros Step By Step
Making homemade churros is a lot easier than you would think. You just need a piping bag with a star tip to make the shape, and you can fry them up right on the stove top. They only take a few minutes to fry, and then theyre ready to eat!
How to Make Churros with Chocolate Sauce:
Dip those churros in the chocolate sauce and enjoy!
See the recipe card for details on how to make Churros at home. Enjoy!
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How To Make The Chocolate Sauce
- Break up dark chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl with any type of plant-based milk.
- Place the bowl over a pan of boiling water and stir regularly until melted.
- Make sure not to overheat it as the chocolate will split if you heat it too much.
- If the chocolate does split, you can easily fix this by adding boiling hot water to it 1 teaspoon at a time and stirring well until the mixture goes back to normal.
- Use more milk if you want a thinner sauce, or use less milk for a thicker sauce.
Can The Churros Be Baked Instead Of Fried
They absolutely can be baked instead of fried, although then its not really a churro. However, I get not wanting to waste a pot of oil just to fry up some churros.
If youre really dead set on baking them, follow my instructions in my gluten free cream puffs post for how to bake them. Once fully baked, immediately roll them in cinnamon sugar or the sugar mixture wont stick to the outside.
Read Also: Kraft Gluten Free Dressing
What Flour To Use To Make Them
I like to use my universal homemade gluten-free flour blend. Which is a mix of the following flours :
5. Xanthan Gum
If you cant make that one, you can try with any gluten-free flour mix . The final result using different flour mix might vary slightly, depending on what flours your mix contains.
To find the recipe for my gluten-free flour mix click, HERE.
