Tsoureki french toast x 2

Hello everyone and Christos Anesti to my fellow Greeks!
I hope you all had a good Easter with lots of good food and company.

My Easter was filled with lamb, roast potatoes, eggs and salads of all kinds, with wine and tsoureki and koulourakia and the expected food coma that comes afterwards, when all you can do is lie on the couch, motionless.

The next day though, hunger strikes again, as it always does, and the leftover tsoureki (Greek Easter sweet bread) gets a second life. The act of making French toast ensues and that’s exactly what happened on Easter Monday.

My tsoureki was not that sweet, I added less sugar this year, so the addition of ripe bananas and nutella was the perfect thing to do. Besides, who can possibly resist the image of Nutella oozing out of two pieces of fried bread?

Needless to say, the combination of hazelnut, chocolate and banana is out of this world, but the mahlepi and mastiha in the tsoureki elevated this filled French toast to a whole new level of deliciousness. To make things even better (or worse, depending on who you’re talking to), I also added some Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur, in the eggs and milk mixture and it really brought out the nuttiness in the nutella, giving the French toast a lovely flavor.

Nevertheless, my all-time favorite way to eat French toast, or avgofetes (αβγοφέτες) as we call them in Greece, is simply by drizzling them with Greek honey, preferably thyme honey and dusting them generously with ground cinnamon. That, to me, is the quintessence of simplicity.
So take your pick and enjoy your left-over tsoureki bread or any other type of bread you have around the house.

Avgofetes Tsourekiou me Meli kai Kanela (Tsoureki French Toast with Greek Thyme Honey and Cinnamon)

My Politiko tsoureki is ideal for French toast because it retains its structure when it gets stale and has a well-browned crust and robust crumb.
You can substitute of course with other types of sweet bread like brioche or challah, or any other type of non-sweet bread. The staler the bread, the better it is as it will soak up more of the egg-milk mixture.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
2 large eggs
50 ml fresh milk, full-fat
8 thick tsoureki bread slices (or any other bread you have on hand, sweet or not)
Sunflower oil, for frying
Greek thyme honey or other runny honey of your choice, for drizzling
Ground cinnamon, for sprinkling


Preparation
In a deep and wide plate, add the eggs and milk and beat with a fork.

In a large frying pan, add enough sunflower oil to cover the base by about 1 cm and heat over medium heat.

Dip the bread slices in the egg-milk mixture, soaking them well on both sides and then add them one by one to the hot oil. Add as many slices as the pan fits. Fry them 2-3 minutes on each side or until cooked through and browned, and transfer them to a plate covered with paper towels to absorb the extra oil. Continue frying the rest.

Place the bread slices on a plate, drizzle with as much honey as you want and dust with cinnamon.
Enjoy while still hot.

Tsoureki French Toast Filled with Nutella and Banana

If you use tsoureki or any other sweet bread for this, choose a banana that is not too ripe, whereas if you use regular bread, choose a very ripe banana for extra sweetness.

Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients
4 thick tsoureki bread slices (or any other bread you have on hand, sweet or not)
2 large eggs
50 ml fresh milk, full-fat
1 Tbsp Frangelico or other hazelnut liqueur (optional)
Sunflower oil, for frying
Nutella or other hazelnut-chocolate spread
1 large ripe banana, sliced on the diagonal


Preparation
In a deep and wide plate, add the eggs and milk and beat with a fork. Add the Frangelico (if using) and whisk to incorporate.

In a large frying pan, add enough sunflower oil to cover the base by about 1 cm and heat over medium heat.

Using the 4 slices of bread, make two sandwiches by spreading as much or as little Nutella as you want on one slice of bread, top with banana slices in one layer and then top with the second slice of bread.

Dip the sandwiches in the egg-milk mixture, soaking the bread slices well and then add them one by one to the hot oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side or until cooked through and browned, and transfer them to a plate covered with paper towels to absorb the extra oil.

Serve immediately while the nutella oozes out of the sandwich.

See also this Tsoureki bread and butter pudding with strawberries, vanilla and currants.