Homemade Air-Fryer Churros

The churro is one of the great Spanish-Mexican exports — choux- style dough fried in long ridged tubes, rolled in cinnamon sugar, eaten with thick hot chocolate for dipping. The "ridged" part is critical, both visually and structurally: the ridges (made by piping the dough through a star-tip nozzle) increase surface area, which means more contact with the hot oil and more crackled crust per inch of churro.

The deep-fried version is a project — boiling water for the dough, heating a pot of oil to 375°F, frying batches with a slotted spoon. The air-fryer version simplifies the front end (you still make the dough on the stove) but eliminates the oil bath. You pipe the dough directly into the air fryer basket and cook at 380°F for 10 minutes. The result isn't quite as crackling as a properly deep-fried churro (the air fryer's drier heat creates a slightly tougher crust), but it's about 90% of the way there, with much less drama.

The photo shows them in their festival-stand presentation: three small galvanised metal cones lined with white parchment paper, each holding 5–6 churros, generously coated in cinnamon sugar. The ridges are pronounced. The colour is deep amber where the ridges hit the hot air, lighter in the valleys. Nuestras churros, hechos en casa.

A note on the dough: it's a choux paste (the same dough used for éclairs and gougères) — flour cooked into boiling water and butter, then eggs beaten in one at a time. Don't try to skip this; rolled-pastry doughs don't pipe into proper churros.