This Thiruvananthapuram-based food stall serves popular Spanish dessert churros

Experience unique churros at Moffles in Kuravankonam, Thiruvananthapuram, with flavors like loaded chocolate and red velvet.

A mild dampness takes over the air in Kuravankonam, Thiruvananthapuram following a lash of monsoon evening showers. The crowd around food trucks and kiosks here are missing, a rare sight in the area known for its street food spots. However, amidst the blaring horns and engines revving, it is a welcome surprise to hear the sizzle and the whiff of churros being fried at Moffles, a momo and churros stall located near the University Institute of Technology, Kuravankonam.

While the name Moffles, a portmanteau of momos and waffles, might be confusing to customers, one of the owners, Akshay Krishna, has an explanation for it. “When we decided to join the food industry in 2024, we wanted to start with momos and add waffles as a second product. It was difficult for us to set up an electricity connection to run the waffle iron here. By that time, we had already started business in December. In February, we added churros, a Spanish fried dessert, to our menu. Now it is our primary product,” says Akshay, who runs the business with his wife, Gowri Krishna.

“The dish is prepared by combining dry ingredients such as refined wheat flour, vanilla powder, skimmed milk powder, corn flour, and baking powder with butter, water, and vanilla essence,” explains Akshay. The dough is added to a custom-made metal canister, which is used to make idiyappam or string hopper. A star-shaped mould is used, and the dough is pushed through it into the oil, giving the churros its characteristic shape. It is crisp on the outside and has a soft cakey texture inside.

“People were hesitant to try it at first. For a month, we gave them churros to try. Even if they came to buy momos, we would give them churros as free samples. These people later became our repeat customers,” says Akshay, who discovered the sweet dish during one of his work trips to Thailand.

“Even though I came for momos, I tried the churros here. Normally, I am not into desserts, but I tried this because it was new and not sold at many places in the city,” says Sreenath SJ, a customer.

The kiosk serves a variety of churros such as cinnamon churros, cheese churros and chocolate churros. It also offers varieties with dips such as choco hazelnut churros, white chocolate churros, orion pistachio churros and mixed chocolate churros. The prices start from ₹80. A special red velvet churro variety served with different dips is available at Moffles with a price starting from ₹100. Each plate has five churros, each 10 centimetres long. The churros can be customised too.

“I asked my sister in the USA what flavours of churros are available there and she told me about maple syrup and sugar. However, we didn’t know whether those flavours would be accepted here so we started with milk chocolate, white chocolate, pistachios and hazelnut,” says Akshay.