This week, we’re taking a trip to Spain! Torrijas is a sweet treat made with bread soaked in milk, dipped in eggs and fried. You can find similar recipes from many different countries, often referred to as French Toast. But they are not exactly the same.
Spain is a big country and you can find many variations of this recipe. In the north, once they’re done frying, people tend to sprinkle the bread slices with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. In the south of Spain, you can find places where they dip them in honey. Nowadays you can even find some covered in chocolate, or even savoury ones. As with everything, claiming to have THE ONE AND ONLY original traditional recipe is a dangerous business, and that isn’t my intent anyway.
This is a quick and easy torrijas recipe. It literally takes less than 20 minutes to makes. It’s better to eat it right after you’re done making them, or that same day. They can be kept for a day or two in the fridge, but they don’t taste as good the following day. Besides, I highly doubt they would last that long!
Quick and Easy Torrijas (Spanish Toasts)
Ingredients
- 1 loaf of bread (better if a day old) You can use any type of bread you have on hand, baguette, sliced, brioche, etc
- 500 ml of milk
- 80 gr of sugar
- 1 stick of cinnamon (or grounded cinnamon)
- 2 large eggs
- oil (for frying) You can use sunflower seed oil, or good quality extra virgin olive oil
- sugar (for coating)
- cinnamon (for coating)
Instructions
- In a saucepan, bring the milk with the sugar and the cinnamon to a simmer. Once simmering, turn off the heat, remove the cinnamon stick if you used one, and pour the milk in a large deep dish or plate.
- Beat the eggs in a large deep plate.
- Cut the bread loaf in slices, 2 to 3 cm thick.
- Dip the bread in the milk, on both sides. Make sure to leave it long enough for the bread to be fully soaked, but not too long or the slices will loose their shape and break apart.
- Once fully soaked, dip the slices in the beaten eggs, coating every side.
- Heat up a large frying pan with the oil. Fry each slice on medium high heat, until crisp and golden brown on each side. If you do it in batches, make sure not to leave the bread with the milk for too long while you do other things (yes, that's experience talking!)
- Once golden brown on all sides, place them on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil (I also dab at them with another paper towel to remove even more excess oil)
- In a plate, mix some sugar and cinnamon, and cover each slice with the mixture on each side.
- Enjoy within one day or two (who are we kidding, they'll never last that long) 🙂
