The blog has been on hiatus for the past month not due to the usual reasons of laziness or lack of inspiration. I have the most boring excuse of all to give you: I am on a diet :(

I have been on this health kick for about a month now, trying to have a better diet and increasing my physical activity (if you live in Melbourne and ever in need of a laugh, you can witness me trying to “run” along the Hume Highway almost each day. Or come to my local gym and watch me flail my arms and legs in a Body Combat class. It’s hilarious.). It hasn’t been too bad to be honest, though. I have been eating less processed and fried foods, increased my fruit and vegetable intake and I have drastically limited my consumption of desserts and sweet treats!

After limiting my sweet tooth for over three weeks now, I thought it was about time a real treat was in order. My mind went into overdrive as the possibilities to break my “sugar drought” were endless. Triple chocolate ice-cream sundae with fudgy chocolate sauce? A big custardy trifle with lashings of cream? A warm bowl of banana butterscotch pudding with rich vanilla ice-cream? I could have it all and had much difficulty in deciding!

As I flicked through my online recipe archive with the many “must try” bookmarked pages, one ridiculously easy recipe just sang to me… churros with dulce de leche sauce. How can one go wrong with some deep-fried goodness dipped in caramel?!

Just make these little crispy suckers. You can thank me later.

Churros with Dulce de Leche Sauce

Adapted from a recipe by the Bodega Tapas boys found in Gourmet Traveller, October 2007.

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

vegetable oil, for deep frying

mixed ground cinnamon and caster sugar, for dusting

Dulce de leche sauce

400g can of condensed milk

60ml of milk, warmed

1. For the sauce,  place unopened can of condensed milk into a large saucepan and cover completely with water. Bring to the simmer over medium heat and cook for 2 hours, adding more water if necessary to keep can covered. Cool completely in water (do not remove can while still warm as it may explode), then open and remove dulce de leche. Combine dulce de leche with milk in a bowl and stir until smooth. Set aside in a warm place until required.
2. For the churros, combine oil, 600ml water and salt in a large saucepan and bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Gradually add flour and baking powder, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until dough is smooth.
3. Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan to 165°C. Spoon the batter into a piping bag with a 1-centimetre star nozzle. Carefully pipe 10cm lengths into the oil, cutting the churro from the bag with scissors, being careful as the hot oil may splash (if this is too fiddly, pipe the batter into a slotted spoon first, then lower into the hot oil). Fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towel and toss in the cinnamon sugar mixture until well combined.
4. Serve warm or cold with the sauce. Don’t forget to lick your fingers :)

* The plate used in this post was kindly given to me as a farewell gift by the boys at work. Thank you Gareth, Pete and John. This post is for you! :)