Cream filled bread tissues

Portuguese rabanadas or torrijas is a typical sweet in Nadal in Portugal, king at carnival or Easter in Spain.

It is a dessert based on a slice of bread soaked in milk, coated in egg, fried in olive oil and flavored to taste with syrup or, in this case, sugar and cinnamon. Their history is very curious, they date back to the XV century and apparently they were a suitable food for the recovery of parturients, what do you think?

This recipe that I present today is a very simple dessert. As a base we have a toast of sliced ​​bread folded into a handkerchief to be able to fill it with rich cream, although you can choose your filling: pastry cream, Catalan, chocolate, orange, cream… Even several different fillings, as if they were donuts or eclairs.

I have used crustless bread without crust so that it is a little less sweet than when it is made with Brioche bread and with a smoother texture than the French toast bread. Try it, you will like it. I leave you with this modernization of the French toast, a simple recipe in case you want to try something different on any holiday without the need to be in the kitchen all day.

Preparation of the pastry cream

1. The first step is to prepare the ingredients with which we are going to flavor the milk. We wash the lemon very well and peel its skin in a fine way, without much white that then makes the dessert bitter. We open the vanilla bean and remove the seeds that we will reserve to add later to the milk.
2. We heat the milk over medium heat almost to the boiling point. We lower the temperature and remove from the heat, add the vanilla seeds, the lemon peel and finally the cinnamon stick. We leave everything to rest for 5 minutes (infusing the milk) while we beat the eggs.

1. We separate the yolks from the whites and put them in a bowl with the sugar (100 g). We beat vigorously with an electric mixer or some rods until we achieve a foamy mixture.
2. Add to the bowl containing the cream of yolks and sugar the fine cornmeal. To mix better we can help ourselves with a little of the hot milk from step 2. We beat everything very well.
3. Heat the milk again at medium temperature for 10 minutes with the vanilla, the lemon peel and the cinnamon. After cooking we pass through a strainer to remove impurities and remove half in a bowl and then soak the slices of bread.
4. We put the casserole with the rest of the milk over low heat, add the mixture of egg cream, sugar and fine cornmeal. We continuously remove with some rods (I just bought some silicone ones that are very good) without lumps and taking care that it never boils. When it begins to thicken, remove from the heat and continue to move for one more minute. Keep in mind that although the cream is a little liquid it will thicken when it cools.
5. We fill a pastry bag, let it rest 1/2 hour and then store in the fridge until it cools. We reserve to fill the handkerchiefs of French toast.

Preparation of the cream handkerchiefs

1. We choose a comfortable container to dip the sliced ​​bread and fill it with the infused and cold milk that we have reserved. Add the port wine and beat with a fork to mix the liquids well.
2. Beat the eggs until they foam a little and add two tablespoons of infused milk, beat again and place on another plate that is comfortable to wet the slices before frying.
3. We put a pan with soft olive oil and heat over medium heat.
4. While the oil is heating, we bathe the slices of sliced ​​bread in the milk. We turn it so that they are well impregnated but do not drip, we can even squash each slice a little to remove the excess milk. We add a little cream in the middle of the slice and fold in the middle in a handkerchief. Then we pass the handkerchief through the beaten egg and from there to the pan.
5. Fry the cakes on both sides until golden. We remove to a plate with absorbent kitchen paper to remove the excess oil.
6. We fill a wide bowl with sugar and cinnamon powder (about two teaspoons of cinnamon powder per 100 g of sugar) and mix well with a fork. We batter the french toast handkerchiefs still hot in that mixture, which are well impregnated with sugar and cinnamon.
7. Let cool and taste at room temperature or cold, simply delicious.