Nigella Lawson's Donut French Toast

Last weekend we celebrated Sandra's birthday - dinner at Ezard's (yes, again!), followed by lovely cocktails at 1806. These will be blogged just as soon as I can, but in the meantime, let's have a look at this magnificent pile of donut French toast that I made for breakfast the morning after.

Our friend An was staying over at ours, (first guest at the new place!) and I somehow got it into my head that it would be a good idea to get up early after a night of drinking and make breakfast for us all. Of course, when the alarm went off at 9:30am I was cursing my own domestic goddessery, but if you know me, you'll know that I'd never pass up an opportunity to make something new and delicious.

The donut French toast recipe comes from Nigella Express, and I'd had the book for a while but wasn't inspired to make until I watched Nigella make it on the DVD. She drizzled it with luscious red strawberry sauce, and it looked heavenly! I was also intrigued by the idea of something that takes less than 20 minutes to make and tastes like donut. The French toast is donut-ified by the addition of vanilla extract to the beaten eggs. Nigella also dredges the cooked toast in powdered sugar, and I added cinnamon to my sugar to really amplify the donut theme.

The day before the breakfast, I'd bought a loaf of Country-style white bread from my local bakery, sliced it thickly, and left it out to dry out. In the normal run of things, you'd use up old stale bread, but that is not how I roll.


Then you dip the bread in the eggs, letting it sit for a good few minutes on each side so that it really soaks up the vanilla-scented eggy batter.


Then it is simply a matter of frying the bread. Nigella suggests using quite a bit of butter for this, but next time, I'd only use a small amount. You have to cook the bread on a low heat so that it cooks all the way through without burning, and as such, it soaks up a LOT of butter. I happen to have a kick-ass non-stick frypan which makes this easier.


Now, as I mentioned previously, Nigella serves a strawberry sauce with the toast, but as strawberries are out of season at the moment, I used frozen raspberries, with some icing sugar and some hot water to thin it out. It made a really intense, sharp and vibrantly red sauce.

The only other thing we needed was a pot of tea, and breakfast was served!

Table runners are so my thing.

Plain

With sauce

Without being too immodest, this breakfast was fabulous! So easy to make and really delicious. Even Sandra, who doesn't like French toast and normally skips breakfast, had 2 pieces. Wahoo! French toast in cafes is often huge, heavy, and weighed down with additions like mascarpone, labneh, honey and bananas. But made like this, simple and without excess adornment, it's a perfectly indulgent - but not too wicked - weekend treat.

Last weekend we celebrated Sandra's birthday - dinner at Ezard's (yes, again!), followed by lovely cocktails at 1806. These will be blogged just as soon as I can, but in the meantime, let's have a look at this magnificent pile of donut French toast that I made for breakfast the morning after.

Our friend An was staying over at ours, (first guest at the new place!) and I somehow got it into my head that it would be a good idea to get up early after a night of drinking and make breakfast for us all. Of course, when the alarm went off at 9:30am I was cursing my own domestic goddessery, but if you know me, you'll know that I'd never pass up an opportunity to make something new and delicious.

The donut French toast recipe comes from Nigella Express, and I'd had the book for a while but wasn't inspired to make until I watched Nigella make it on the DVD. She drizzled it with luscious red strawberry sauce, and it looked heavenly! I was also intrigued by the idea of something that takes less than 20 minutes to make and tastes like donut. The French toast is donut-ified by the addition of vanilla extract to the beaten eggs. Nigella also dredges the cooked toast in powdered sugar, and I added cinnamon to my sugar to really amplify the donut theme.

The day before the breakfast, I'd bought a loaf of Country-style white bread from my local bakery, sliced it thickly, and left it out to dry out. In the normal run of things, you'd use up old stale bread, but that is not how I roll.


Then you dip the bread in the eggs, letting it sit for a good few minutes on each side so that it really soaks up the vanilla-scented eggy batter.


Then it is simply a matter of frying the bread. Nigella suggests using quite a bit of butter for this, but next time, I'd only use a small amount. You have to cook the bread on a low heat so that it cooks all the way through without burning, and as such, it soaks up a LOT of butter. I happen to have a kick-ass non-stick frypan which makes this easier.


Now, as I mentioned previously, Nigella serves a strawberry sauce with the toast, but as strawberries are out of season at the moment, I used frozen raspberries, with some icing sugar and some hot water to thin it out. It made a really intense, sharp and vibrantly red sauce.

The only other thing we needed was a pot of tea, and breakfast was served!

Table runners are so my thing.

Plain

With sauce

Without being too immodest, this breakfast was fabulous! So easy to make and really delicious. Even Sandra, who doesn't like French toast and normally skips breakfast, had 2 pieces. Wahoo! French toast in cafes is often huge, heavy, and weighed down with additions like mascarpone, labneh, honey and bananas. But made like this, simple and without excess adornment, it's a perfectly indulgent - but not too wicked - weekend treat.