One of my favourite comfort foods is French toast – or eggy bread as it’s sometimes called. It can be either savoury or sweet – like this apricot jam stuffed almond French toast I made this week.
Apricot and almond are a good match; just make sure you only use a ½ teaspoon of almond extract, or it will overpower the subtle flavour of the apricot conserve. Although I used ½ & ½ quantities of whole milk and double cream, you can use just single cream to make the custard mixture.
The secret to the best French toast is to fry it using a tablespoon of vegetable oil with a tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes on each side. Use a cast iron or other heavy-bottomed frying pan, making sure it’s on a low heat setting to prevent burning. Once both sides are a lovely golden brown colour, put the French toast on a baking sheet an pop it into a moderate oven for 15 minutes to ensure that it’s cooked through.
Eat it straight away… for breakfast, brunch or as a winter dessert.
Click here or on the image below to save my apricot jam stuffed almond French toast recipe to Pinterest
Apricot jam stuffed almond french toast
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- ¼ pt whole milk
- ¼ pt double cream
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- ½ tsp almond extract
- 4 slices of thick-sliced white bread
- 2 heaped tbsps apricot conserve
- 2 tbsps flaked almonds toasted
- A couple shakes of icing sugar to finish
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
- In a large measuring jug, whisk the eggs with the milk, cream and sugar until the sugar has dissolved
- Stir in the almond extract and set pour the mixture into a shallow dish that is large enough to fit the bread
- Spread the apricot conserve on 2 of the slices of bread. Put the unspread slices on top to form 2 apricot sandwiches
- Put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of vegetable oil into a heavy-bottomed frying pan and set it over a low heat
- Place the first sandwich into the dish of custard mixture for 30 seconds before turning it over and soaking the other side for a further 30 seconds. Carefully tip the dish to ensure the mixture coats all around the edges
- When the butter in the frying pan has melted and begins to bubble, put the dipped sandwich into the pan and fry for 5 minutes. Using a heat-proof spatula, flip it over and cook the other side for 5 minutes
- Once both sides are golden brown, take the first french toast out of the frying pan, put it on to a baking sheet and put it into the oven while you cook the second portion. When that one is done, finish it off in the oven like the first
- Remove from the oven, slice each portion into 4 triangles, sprinkle over the flaked almonds and dredge with a little icing sugar
- Eat immediately
