As delicious as simple French toast may be, there’s nothing wrong with striving to make it better. And so I dipped egg-and-milk-soaked challah slices into a mixture of almond meal and sugar, fried in butter, and the modest toast turned into a fancier, not too sweet, pastry that still takes only minutes to prepare.

To make it even better, I made a quick honey-butter sauce spiced with mahleb, a Mediterranean spice made of ground seed of sour cherry.

A few rules: the day-old challah should really be at least two days old, three is better. It will soak the liquid better.
The amount of butter may seem extravagant, and it is, but that’s the best way to fry the almond meal without burning it. And it’s not like you’re eating this every day, right?

Worried about the calories? the French toast we know today is very similar to a Sephardi Medieval fried bread, called rebanadas de parida or revanadas de parida. A recipe in Matilda Sarano’s excellent book Cooking Ladino Flavor (in Hebrew and Ladino) gives a recipe originated from Tangier, Morocco, that calls for white bread, egg, milk and cinnamon. The bread is dipped in milk, then in egg, fried in oil and then drizzled with a simple sugar syrup (other recipes call for honey) and sprinkled with cinnamon. It was believed to help new mothers to produce more milk and give them strength, and so it was considered a health food of a kind. And I choose to believe it still is.

Times they are a changin’ (unfortunately).

Crunchy almond French toast

Recipe by Vered GuttmanCourse: Breakfast, BrunchDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

The French toast in this recipe is coated in almond meal and served with a delicious raw honey-butter-mahlab sauce.

Note
Mahlab is a spice made of ground seeds of sour cherry and is used in Middle Eastern cuisines to spice baked goods. It lends an earthy aroma to the sauce here and is a good spice to experiment with if you’re into baking – I add it to babkas and it is just wonderful. It is available online and in many Middle Eastern stores.

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
¼ cup milk
4 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
4 inch-thick two days old challah
1 cup almond meal
6 tablespoons butter
For the honey sauce
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon raw honey (or any type of honey)
¼ teaspoon mahlab (optional. See note above) OR ½ teaspoon Orange zest

DIRECTIONS

In a rectangular cake pan that can fit the challah slices in one layer, mix together eggs, milk, 2 tablespoons sugar and almond extract. Arrange challah in pan, and let soak up the egg mixture, about 2 minutes per side.
In the meantime, in a medium bowl mix almond meal and 2 tablespoons sugar. Dip each slice of challah in almond mixture on both sides, do so a couple of times, until it is well coated with the almond mixture. Arrange on a clean plate.
Put 2 tablespoons butter in a non stick pan over medium-high heat. When pan is hot and butter has melted, put 2 challah slices in and gently fry until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. If the challah becomes brown too quickly, reduce the heat to medium. Add another tablespoon of butter to the pan, flip challah slices, and fry the second side for 2-3 minutes. Transfer fried challah into a serving plate.
Remove pan from heat and carefully wipe with a paper towel, removing all crumbs. Put pan back on heat and repeat with the rest of the challah slices. Transfer to a serving plate.
While French toast is frying, quickly make the sauce. In a small pan over medium-low heat put butter, raw honey and mahlab (if using) or orange zest, cook until butter has melted and mix well. Remove from heat and transfer into a small bowl.
Serve French toast right away with sauce on the side.