Oven-Baked Churros

After tasty, satisfying Mexican food, it’s nice to top it off with a sweet treat (as if you aren't full enough already).  Making pralines can be tricky – is it humid? Did the liquid reach the right temperature, but not burned?  These oven-baked churros will satisfy your sweet tooth and are easy to make.  No fooling!  This recipe is courtesy of Southern Living May 2011 (yes, that’s how deep my backlog of magazines is!)

Since 1 pastry sheet will make 18 churros, I only used 1 sheet for our family.  If they had been out of town, I would have made both sheets and enjoyed them all myself but I must show some restraint around the kids.

Ingredients 

Oven-baked Churros
(with a side of vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce)

1. 1 (17.3 oz) package frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed
2. ¼ c sugar
3. 1 t ground cinnamon
4. ¼ c (4 T) melted butter

Preheat oven to 450.  Unfold and cut puff pastry sheets in half length-wise.  Then cut each half crosswise into 1-inch strips (hint: that means 9 per half sheet – or 18 total).  Place strips on a lightly greased parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown.

While baking, combine sugar and cinnamon and melt butter just in advance of the pastry strips being baked.  Remove pastry strips from the oven and dip in butter.  Sprinkle/pour the cinnamon sugar mixture over the strips (recipe said to roll the strips in the mixture however then the butter clumps the cinnamon sugar).  Let stand on a wire rack for 5 minutes or until dry.