(letters shaped) baked churros

happy summer! i have been quite mia lately, but a thousand things have been happening; i miiight have gotten into an accident (all is well now), i finished my residency, + currently waiting for my license!, and i'm moving to a new apartment, to name a few.

and i don't know about you, but i'm baking, baaaaking in this heat. if you know me, then you know i prefer colder weather (a thousand times yes to rain, snow, and overcast weather) because my body does not know how to handle heat very well. but i was looking through my old blog and came across this fun recipe that i thought would be fun to share and even re-create this summer!

this is an old recipe i had put up, back in may of 2015 (!!) for one of my high school girlfriends' bday (s/o to you, katie). we were skeptical, and to be honest, they turned out way better than ever anticipated. it's been 3 years but i still remember how impressed i was by them -- by their looks and taste -- so trying this recipe out is a must :0)

ingredients

2 tbsp light or dark brown sugar, packed

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup margarine/unsalted butter

1 cup all purpose flour

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

note: we had actually modified the ingredients from what we had in the pantry, we substituted regular sugar for dark brown, so yours may look different from ours in the end.

instructions

1. preheat oven to 425F.
2. in a medium saucepan, stir and combine:
   water, brown sugar, and salt. 
3. after stirring, add butter, and place on medium-high until the butter is melted and the mixture begins to slightly boil.
4. in a separate bowl, combine and mix eggs and vanilla.
5. add to dough mixture in the pan until the texture is similar to mashed potatoes.
   for this part, we realized that the mixture was still a bit too loose and had difficulty keeping its shape after piping, so we eyeballed more flour and vanilla extract until it got to appropriate thickness
6. transfer mixture to a piping bag with a ridged piping tip.
7. pipe desired length on parchment paper with 1.5 inch minimum between churros. 
8. bake for 10-12 minutes until slightly puffed; then turn the oven to the broiler setting, keeping a close eye on them once they turn a deep golden brown.
   broiling is the important part to make them nice and cruncy (w/o needing to fry! woohoo!)
9. combine sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. roll or spinkle on top of churros once they come out of the oven.
   if your churros have cooled and the sugary mixture has difficulty sticking, we melted some butter to dip them in before sprinkling the sugary mixture to help with that!

we had made these for her bday so we decided to spell it out. so, so much fun! these are the perfect way to explore your creativity!