Panettone French Toast

I hope everyone had a great holiday and a happy New Year! If your New Year's resolution is to eat healthier, then I'm sorry, this recipe is not for you...but you should try the salad from my last post!

In my family, it's a tradition to have Panettone at Christmas. Panettone is an eggy, sweet Italian dessert cake made with lots of spices, citrus zest, and rasins. You can normally find it at any grocery store around the holidays - I just saw some on sale this morning, score! It's pretty delicious on its own, or toasted with a little butter, but my favorite way to eat it is in the form of french toast. 

It's basically a standard french toast recipe with a little extra cinnamon and some orange zest to bring out the flavors of the bread. Since the bread is so dense, it soaks up an ton of the dipping mixture, and once cooked, it becomes crispy on the outside and custardy on the inside.

Panettone French Toast

Makes 6 pieces, serves about 3, and can be very easily doubled or tripled to feed a crowd!

6 medium-thick slices Panettone

2 cups milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons orange zest

Butter for frying and topping

It really couldn't be easier - just mix all ingredients together in a wide, shallow bowl. Use a whisk to make sure the eggs are well combined with the milk.

Dunk the Panettone slices into the wet mixture, flipping them over to make sure they are soaked through.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and melt a generous pat of butter. I like to use salted butter just because I think it's a nice contrast to the sweet french toast, but you can use whatever you have!

Cook all slices until they are golden brown and slightly crisp on the outside. I'd recommend keeping it simple with the toppings - jam or syrup can overwhelm the flavors, so I love just a little butter and powdered sugar.

Here's Poppy, napping as usual. She's a little depressed that Christmas is over and there are no more shiny ornaments to play with and trees to try and knock down.