IPA Churros With Chocolate Dipping Sauce

RECIPES | This IPA churros recipe with a dash of mandarin and chocolate beer dipping sauce has been designed to celebrate Melbourne’s Good Beer Week. The beer scene has changed dramatically over the past decade with an array of different varieties and flavour profiles available on the market. These different flavour profiles mean you can use beer to give food more depth and body. Once you taste these churros you will certainly understand what I mean. We tried a few different kinds of beers before settling on an IPA (in this case Pirate Life IPA), which really gives the churros a nice subtle hop kick.

Ingredients

Churros

• pinch of salt
• 1 large egg (56g)
• 150 ml of pale ale
• 230g all purpose flour
• 60g unsalted butter
• 40g brown sugar
• zest of one orange
• zest of three mandarins
• 10ml vanilla extract
• 50g caster sugar
• 5g ground cinnamon
• vegetable oil for frying

Chocolate dipping sauce

• 100g dark chocolate, chopped finely
• 100ml pale ale
• 20g caster sugar
• 75ml double cream

Method

1. Add 100ml of beer and 20g of caster sugar to a saucepan on a moderate heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. While the beer syrup is reducing add the butter, brown sugar, orange zest vanilla extract, zest of one mandarin and beer to a separate saucepan. Place on a moderate heat stirring regularly until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has completely melted.
3. Add the flour and salt to the saucepan and stir until the mixture forms a dough.
4. Remove from the heat and allow the dough to cool for 10 minutes.
5. While the dough is cooling, add vegetable oil to a heavy bottom pot or fryer and heat to 180°C. Ideally, you need enough oil that it covers a depth of 6-7cm from the base of the pot.
6. Remove the beer syrup from the heat and add the cream and chocolate. Stir well until the chocolate has completely melted and smooth creamy dipping sauce has formed. Set aside for later.
7. Once the dough is cool, add the egg to the dough and whisk vigorously until incorporated.
8. Transfer the mixture into a piping bag with a star nozzle.
9. Pipe 6-7cm lengths into the hot oil.
10. Cook each churros for 3-4 minutes.
11. Remove from the oil and place on kitchen towel to drain.
12. Mix together the caster sugar, cinnamon and remaining mandarin zest. Roll the churros in the sugar mixer.
13. Repeat steps 9-12 until all the mixture has been used.
14. Serve warm with the dipping sauce

Notes

Only cook a few churros at time. If you add to many at once the temperature of the oil will drop rapidly resulting in soggy, oily churros.

You can use a beer other than IPA, but we find that the hop intensity of an IPA is just right. With a lager or pale ale the beer flavour gets lost, while a double/imperial IPA provides hops that are a bit too pronounced. Try a few beer styles and let us know which is your favourite.