Spiced French toast

I’m sitting in my ‘office’ (my bedroom) with my little brother. He’s drawing with his pencil crayons and I’m working. We are both in our pyjamas and don’t plan on changing any time soon. He keeps on interrupting me and my work with his asking of “What colour is this,” and “Benny, dis colour not working.” We are sharing a slice of French toast.

When I woke up this morning I felt like eating something sweet for breakfast. I thought I would make myself some toast, but then decided it would be better to make some French toast. For those of you who don’t know what exactly French toast is, it is amazing. It is stale bread soaked in eggs and milk and then pan fried in melted butter until golden and crisp. Thanks to it being Christmas time, I thought that I would give a Christmassy take on French toats with the addition of a few simple ingredients, ground cinnamon, vanilla extract, and orange zest; similar to my Christmas challah. As the bread soaks up the eggy custard it also soaks up all of the sweet and spicy Christmas flavours. And then as it fries away in a buttery pan, it crisps up and the orange zest becomes almost crunchy and sticky. It literally took me a few minutes to put this together, which is record time as my little brother was helping me. Enjoy with any toppings of your choice, I went with plums, syrup and orange zest.

Makes 3 slices

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 2 tbs milk
• 3 slices stale white bread

Method:

Crack the eggs into a large high-sided plate together with the vanilla extract, cinnamon, orange zest and milk. Mix until all ingredients are well combined.

Place a slice of bread into the custard like mixture and leave to soak for a minute on each side.

Melt some butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the soaked slice of bread on each side for about 2 minutes or until golden.

Repeat this process with all slices of bread.

Serve warm with toppings of your choice.