Search no further, this is it. The Nigerian chin chin recipe you have been searching for. Sounds cocky right? But this really is it. Try it and see. Chin chin is a very common Fried West African snack. It is a delightfully tasty crunchy snack.
WARNING: Once you start munching, you would have to be restrained to stop.
Even as this snack is commonly enjoyed in Nigeria, not all chin chins are made equal. Some are overtly sweet, or tasteless, while some are just an oil soaked mess.
Growing up I helped my mom make chinchin a lot during the Christmas season. We always looked forward to making this delightful snack during the Christmas holidays.
Table of Contents
Why does my chinchin soak up oil?
One of our readers asked this question in the comments so I decided to update the post to include the answer. Thank you Yemi for taking out time to drop your comment. You are appreciated ❤️
Sometimes you find that your chin chin is soggy or has soaked up a lot of oil here are a few reasons why?
- The Oil wasn’t hot enough.
- The Oil wasn’t enough for the amount of chin chin dough being fried.
- The Oil was Overcrowded. Overcrowding the oil lowers the oil temperature and we are back to no 1 point above
How to prevent chinchin from soaking up a lot Oil when frying.
- The oil wasn’t hot enough: Before you frying the chin chin. Always test the heated oil by putting a piece of chin chin in the oil . If oil bubbles and the piece of chin chin comes up immediately then the oil is ready for frying.
- The Oil wasn’t enough for the amount of chin chin dough being fried:
Always fry your chin chin with enough oil. Frying chin chin requires deep frying which requires enough oil. - Overcrowding the oil with dough: Make sure you have enough oil to fry your dough. Too much dough overcrowds the and doesn’t allow adequate frying by lowering the temperature of the oil and making the dough soak up oil.
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How do I stop the oil used to fry chin chin from bubbling over and spilling?
Most time this happens when you are frying a second batch of the chin chin dough. I have observed that this happens only when my dough is made with butter. When I make chin chin with magerine , i can fry the whole batch with the same batch without having the oil bubble up and spill over.
But since I prefer the texture and taste of chin chin made with butter here are a few tips
- If you are making a large quantity, use a large pot to fill in oil to accommodate large chin chin dough for each batch then Change the oil after each batch.
- If you are making a small quantity, Use a large pot to accommodate the amount of oil needed to fry the chin-chin in one batch.
It was part of our travel package. We travelled home to our village (country home) every Christmas. So this chin chin served as our snack and also as gifts to visitors. Trust me we never got tired of munching on these and you too will not. Read warning above.
These are soft and almost crumbly on the inside and crunchy on the outside. So not to worry no jaw breakers here. ?. These little delights are ‘CROFT’ in my son’s words meaning Crunchy and Soft You get the drift right. The young man is a foodie at heart creating a portmanteau for food lol. But if Kamso says this is good, Believe me it is ?
Now let’s get to this amazing ‘CROFT’ chin chin recipe ?
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Recommended Products for making best chin chin
1. Pottella deep square 9.5″ copper pan: it has a frying basket, a steamer tray plus you get a free cookbook with it.
2. Frying spoon: This one comes in a set of three. Best value.
3. 32 oz clear plastic storage jars: These come in a set of 6. I reserve 2 for chin-chin and use the rest for storing other pantry staples like oats.
4. Oggi four piece acrylic canister set: Also great for storage.
5. Paper Towel: To absorb excess oil after frying and before storage.
6. Serving bowls: These are perfect to serve your chinchin with.
PIN FOR LATER
Nigerian Chin chin
Ingredients
- 280g (1 3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp) all purpose flour
- 82g (1/3 cup) granulated sugar
- 57g (4 Tbsp) salted butter
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 large egg
- ¼ cup evaporated milk
- Oil for deep frying
Instructions
- Measure and Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
- Measure and mix wet ingredients together except butter.
- Add butter to the dry ingredients and mix with your fingers until just combined.
- Pour in the other wet ingredients and mix together until dough forms. it should form a perfect dough but if its feels a bit stiff, add a Tbsp of water or milk. if it feels too tacky, add a Tbsp or 2 of flour no more. DO NOT over work the dough.
- Wrap in a saran wrap and allow to rest on the counter for about 5 mins. this allows flavors blend in and develops the gluten which makes it easier during the cutting process
- Unwrap rested dough, you can roll out all the dough at once since dough is small or you can divide into 2 portions and roll individually. Roll out dough to about a quarter of an inch thick because dough will rise when you fry them.
- With a knife or pizza cutter or even a dough divider cut dough across vertically and horizontally forming little squares.
- Put little squares in a bowl and sprinkle a little flour on them and shake to prevent sticking.
- Heat up oil. Fry till light golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and spread on a paper towel lined tray to cool. Chin chin will be soft when hot but hardens as it cools.
Notes
Hiiii..I made chin but when trying to cut it with knife..it became too sticky it was sticking to each other and as a result sticking to the flat surface where I rolled the dough..this also spoilt the shape of my chinchin it was no longer the small square shape that I intended it to be..please help with tips ma
Hi Juli,
Don’t worry that’s a small problem to fix 😉 before you begin to roll out your dough make sure it’s not sticky. Then lightly dust your surface with flour before rolling it out. That should prevent it from sticking. Let me know if that worked. Thanks for stopping by. Stay safe!
-Chichi
Hello,
Great recipe! Will definitely try this out.
Please what’s the difference between bleached and unbleached flour and which did you use for this recipe?
Hi Kike,
I use both bleached and unbleached flour for this recipe and both work well. You can also use wheat flour.
The difference between bleached and unbleached flour is in that processing. Chemicals are added to bleached flour to speed up the aging process giving a whiter flour and lending a softer texture to baked goods.
On the other hand, unbleached flour is allowed to age naturally. (Still processed but not with chemicals) hope my response helps.
-Chichi
Tried this yesterday and it turned out soooo good! Thank you for the recipe; I now have it saved as PDF
Yayyy! Mo, happy you loved it. Thank you for the feedback 😀
– Chichi
Sometimes its soggy because of too much margarine or butter.
Thank you for the recipe! I didn’t have butter so I used oil but it still came out delicious. God bless!
Hi Grace,
That’s nice to know. Many readers have been asking if they can sub the butter for oil. I was going to try it out as and see.
Thanks for letting me know it worked for you. Happy you liked the recipe. Stay safe.
– Chichi
Thank you for ur good work
Please I want to ask, if I want my chi chin ‘very crunchy’ , which do I add more, the milk or the egg. Thanks as I await your answer
Hi Vicky,
Thank you for stopping by. If you want it more crunchy than it is in this recipe, add a little more flour about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup will work. Stay safe!
– Chichi
I woke up last week & wanted to make chin chin. My mum & sisters always made chin chin every festive season in Nigeria without a recipe but I didn’t want to wing it. I found this recipe & it’s perfect.
I have made it twice now & always baked mine. Always comes out perfect! My boyfriend isn’t Nigerian but he loves it!
Thanks for making this available!
Hi Uche,
You are welcome. Thank you for your feedback. Happy it was able to help you re-live those precious childhood memories and that your boyfriend loved it as well.
Chin chin is also a great part of my childhood Christmas memories. Stay safe
-Chichi
What cup are you using for measurement
Hi Paschaline,
I use standard measuring cups like these https://amzn.to/2XSFQNT
Hello there Chichi, thank you for this, God bless you real good.
I’m challenged at the moment as I followed all the ingredients, but when I finally fried, it didn’t come out strong, the outer part of it was brown as expected, but the inner part was quite very very soft.
Could I have missed something, or my ground mixture wasn’t correct.
Thanks in anticipation
Huchey
Hi Huchey,
Amen and Thank you, God bless you too. I don’t really understand what you mean by not coming out strong. The chin chin hardens as it cools.
This recipe is meant to be crunchy but not too hard. If you are talking about the really hard chin chin, you can achieve that by adding a bit more flour to this recipe about 1/4 to 1/2 cup. Hope that helps. Thanks you for stopping by, stay safe!
– Chichi
Thank you for your response and taking out time to explain.
Now here’s what I mean by soft. After frying it comes out Brown and hard but, the inside part of it is as soft as a cake.
Hi Huchey,
I haven’t had that experience before. Did you use the right measurements? My comes out brown and crunchy. Is there anything you might have done differently.
-Chichi
Thank you for the recipe. I only have self rising flour at hand. Can I use that and then omit the baking powder? Please let me know.
Hi Onyii,
I haven’t tried using self rising flour but I think the amount of baking powder per cup in self rising flour may be too much for the chinchin.
A cup of self rising flour has 1/2 Tbsp of baking powder. This chin chin recipe needs just 1/2 tsp of baking powder for 1 3/4 cup of flour.
Like I said I haven’t tried self rising flour for chin chin but it works for my Nigerian buns. https://www.mydiasporakitchen.com/sweet-nigerian-buns/
But if you try it and it works, let me know. Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe!
– Chichi
Good evening ma. Thank you so much for the putting this together. It’s useful. Please I’ll like to know the quantity of other ingredients (by weight) that’ll be needed to make a paint of flour. The paint used in measuring garri in our local markets. Thank you in anticipation. 🙏
Hi Patience,
You are welcome, Unfortunately I can’t help with that at the moment since I don’t have that size of paint bucket to refer to.
But if you have a scale and can weight the flour in your paint bucket, I can help you calculate an estimate of the weight of the other ingredients.
Here is how you can do it, place your bucket of the scale, before putting flour in the bucket, write down the weight of the bucket. Fill the bucket with flour and write down the weight after adding the flour. To get the exact weight of the flour, subtract the weight of the empty bucket from the weight of the bucket with the flour in it.
That is the weight i would need to calculate an estimate of the other ingredients. Hope that helps. Stay safe!
– Chichi