Torrijas
Spanish Easter Milk-Soaked Fried Bread
Thick slices of day-old bread are soaked in sweet milk scented with cinnamon and lemon until they are heavy with it, dipped in egg, fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar. The inside turns to custard. Spain eats them all through Holy Week, and bakeries pile them in their windows.
The Spanish recipe read boils milk with sugar, a cinnamon stick and lemon peel, lets it cool, soaks the bread until saturated, coats it in beaten egg and fries it in olive oil, finishing with sugar and cinnamon. It treats them as the sweet of Semana Santa.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 10 slices of day-old white bread, 2 cm thick
- 500 ml whole milk
- 50 g caster sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- Pared zest of 1/2 lemon
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 300 ml mild olive oil or sunflower oil, for shallow frying
To coat
- 60 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Method
- Infuse the milk Heat the milk with the sugar, cinnamon stick and lemon zest until it just boils. Take off the heat and leave until lukewarm, about 30 minutes. Strain into a shallow dish.
- Soak the bread Lay the bread in the milk and leave for 10 to 30 minutes, turning once, until soaked through but still holding together. Dense, dry bread takes longer; soft bread needs much less. Lift onto a rack to drain for a few minutes.
- Fry Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over a medium heat until a cube of bread browns in about 40 seconds (around 170°C). Dip each slice in beaten egg and fry, three at a time, for 2 minutes a side, until deep golden. Drain on kitchen paper.
- Coat Mix the sugar and ground cinnamon on a plate and turn the warm torrijas in it. Serve warm or at room temperature, the same day.
Food safety
Hot oil: do not leave the pan unattended, and lower the soaked bread in gently, as the milk makes the oil spit.
The bread must be stale. Fresh bread falls apart in the milk.