Xuixos

Gesundheit. All I can say is, if you’ve ever wondered why the cronut has created so much international hoopla, make yourself up a batch of these. You’ll get it in a hurry. And I should say you’ll also have the satisfaction of having made the original cronut, which dates back roughly 100 years to a small city in Catalonia. Why on Earth deep fried croissant dough has never gotten much attention outside of Spain these last ten decades I’ll never understand, because…wow. Add in the cinnamon- and citrus-scented crema Catalan, and you have a positive show-stopper.

The one thing I’ll say is that next time I do these — and it’ll be soon — I’ll roll the croissant dough thinner than I would for a traditional croissant (rolling the 24-ounce piece to 16″ x 16″ instead of 12″ x 16″ should do the trick). Why? Because main challenge with xuixos is ensuring that they get heated all the way through. Which is why, in additional to thinner dough, you’ll want to make sure you fry at a slightly lower-than-normal temperature, so the heat has a chance to penetrate. Dough that’s 1/8 inch maximum will also help ensure through-to-the-middle cooking. So then, let’s start.

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Xuixo Recipe

Xuixos are made of components most of us pastry types already know: croissant dough and pastry cream (though in this case, the crème brûlée-like crema Catalana). Not having made xuixo before, I don’t know the quantities exactly, so I’ll put up guesstimates until I actually do them later on in the week.

For now I’ll say that there are two schools of thought on filling xuixos: filling them before frying or after. I’ll confess that filling a fried pastry at the shaping step makes no sense to me, as the custard will not only moisten and compress the delicate dough as it’s trying to proof, you run the risk of curdling the filling as the xuixo deep fries. Not to mention the fact that the filling could ooze out during the frying process, making a mess. No, I’m a fry-first-and-fill-later kinda guy. We’ll need:

20 ounces croissant dough
1 recipe crema Catalana
1 recipe egg wash
Canola oil for frying
granulated sugar for dusting

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