Lightly Spiced and Fruity French Toast

This is the breakfast I dream of. Soft, fruited bread soaked in an eggy batter lightly fragranced with mixed spice, vanilla and freshly grated nutmeg, fried in butter, dusted in icing sugar and then drenched in luscious maple syrup. Served warm this makes a perfect breakfast any day but for me this french toast always feels like Easter. The spices and fruited loaf are reminiscent of Hot Crossed Buns, I want to eat them on a bright spring morning, with a bunch of daffodils decorating the table, serving the toast on a big plate so that everyone can help themselves.

The sun may be shining but the Daffodils are only just pushing their way though the hard, frosty ground up here in north Fife. We were supposed to be heading out in the central Scotland for a few days in search of mountain hares but our van had other ideas, running very sluggish and noisy. We only made it a mile or two down the road before turning back. Oh well, nothing a big plate of french toast couldn’t solve.

It’s only minor mechanical issues, the fuel pump is probably on its way out and the van is booked in for its yearly MOT {road-worthy check} on Thursday so we’ll stay put and get this all sorted.

I used to make this breakfast all the time, I’d make the fruity loaf in my breadmaker the day before, oh how domesticated I was! These days my breadmaker is in storage so I buy the loaves. I have very fond memories of making this french toast on my camping stove, or in camp kitchens, when we roadtripped across Australia. It’s perfect for a camping breakfast treat when all you have is a frying pan. I didn’t have vanilla or fresh nutmeg, just a jar of spice, or was it just cinnamon? Either way, those breakfasts were particularly delicious, drizzled with honey {Maple syrup was way out of our daily budget!}. There is something especially wonderful about making decadent breakfasts like this in the great outdoors, in exciting surroundings.

Here we are camped at Karajini NP, Western Australia. I don’t have any pictures of me actually cooking anything! That ground was really hard and stony to sleep on! We had the smallest tent, it eventually got destroyed on a stormy night camped in a sand dune on the Ayre Peninsula. We upgraded to one with a porch!

Lightly Spiced and Fruity French Toast

• 1 small, sliced fruited loaf
• 2 free range eggs
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 50 ml {1/4 cup} milk

• butter for frying
• icing sugar for dusting
• maple syrup for serving

Beat the eggs with the sugar in a wide, shallow bowl, a pasta dish is ideal, using a whisk or a fork. Add the vanilla, mixed spice, nutmeg and milk and mix well.

Melt a couple of teaspoons of butter in large frying pan over a medium to low heat. Dip the slices of fruit loaf into the batter. Fry a few slices at a time but don’t overcrowd the pan. Cook for a few minutes on each side. Keep the heat quite low so that the egg cooks through the bread without burning the outsides.

I use fresh butter for each batch, repeat until all the bread or batter is used up. This batter is enough for one small loaf, so long as you don’t leave the slices of bread in the batter for too long, they will suck up loads of batter given half a chance!

Dust the hot slices with sifted icing sugar. I like to half the slices diagonally and serve them in a pile of plate, drizzled with maple syrup.