MAKING "TORRIJAS" AT EASTER TIME

During Semana Santa in Spain there is a dessert which is very popular, its name is torrijas. I personally love them and during these days I eat a lot of them and I have thought that a sweet post after quite a few photos of processions, wouldn’t be a bad idea for other people who has a sweet tooth like me!

So today I want to explain a Spanish recipe to make sweet and delicious torrijas, following my dad’s recipe, I have to say that my dad worked for many years as a cook for a very good and very typical restaurant in Madrid, called Restaurante Botin, which it is, by the way, in the Guinnes World Records for being the oldest restaurant in the world still working, in fact, it was founded in 1725 (yes, 285 years and still working!). Other day I’ll post something about this nice restaurant.

So as I was saying, I am going to tell you how to make this popular dessert in my country. I’ll start with the ingredients:

- 1 white bread bar

- ½ litre milk

- 3/4 eggs

- 1 litre olive oil

- honey

- sugar

- cinnamon

- lemon

First of all, is to take into account that the bread to be used, has to be one day old, because if you use fresh bread it won’t absorb enough the milk.

Then the milk has to be boiled and in the meantime you can prepare a big pot with milk with sugar to bathe the bread.

Then the bread has to be cut in big slices that will be put on the pot with the milk with sugar. Then you have to let the bread draining the milk for a while. At the same time you can put a big frying pan with the olive oil and heat it.

Meanwhile you can coil the eggs in a plate and after that you take every slice of bread and submerge it in the eggs and then the bread will be fried in the frying pan and let it in a sauce pan.

When all the slices of bread have been fried, they have to be let during an hour. During that time we can make the syrup. In a sauce pan you put some water to boil and then you put in the sugar, the lemon, a little of honey and the most important, the cinnamon.

Then you can put the torrijas into a tray and pour the syrup in it and in a few hours they will be ready to be eaten.

Well, I hope the cook fans will dare to try this Spanish recipe because I can promise, if you do, you’ll really enjoy the result! Even more, if you try it with a little glass of sweet Moscatel wine ¡Buen provecho!