Vegan French toast

July 28, 2012

   

I've just run a search for 'French toast' on this blog and turned up cafe brunch after cafe brunch; there's nary a recipe to be seen. Actually, this old comment is evidence that I've been making vegan French toast at home for a good two years or more. I can't remember where I sourced my first recipe, because this bears little resemblance to the ones in Vegan Brunch. I think maybe Pip's version got me excited about using chickpea flour in the batter, and then I later refined my formula with vanilla and cinnamon thanks to Vicki.

Regardless, that formula is a winner, requiring little more than our standard pantry stores and Saturday morning rage. If chickpea flour isn't yet a staple in your kitchen, consider investing a couple of dollars and centimetres of shelf space on it - we've used it for lots of excellent 'eggy' batters in addition to some more traditional Indian recipes. Though they're also pantry standards, I haven't yet tried out Pip's savoury salt-and-pepper seasoning, nor Vicki's curious tablespoon of nooch in a sweet batch! No doubt you could sneak in any sort of spice you fancy. As it stands, this recipe tastes very much like the 'fried bread' I remember my mum making - a little crusty and caramelised on the outside, soft and cakey inside, with extra capacity for soaking up syrup.

My other French toast must-have is fruit. We've recently had a haul of citrus so I segmented up an orange, a tangelo and a mandarin, saving their extra juice and whisking it with a little maple syrup to pour over the top.

Vegan French toast
(with a hat-tip to The Fairest Feed and Vicki Vegan)


1/4 cup chickpea flour/besan
1/2 cup non-dairy milk
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
shake of ground cinnamon
4 slices of bread
2 tablespoons sunflower oil

Place the chickpea flour in a bowl and very gradually whisk in the milk until smooth. Stir in the maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon. 

Heat half the oil in a frypan. Drop a slice of bread in the bowl to absorb the milk mixture, turn it over once and then transfer it to the frypan; repeat with a second piece of bread. Fry the battered bread for several minutes on each side, until lightly browned. Repeat with the rest of the bread and serve.