Sugar and Cinnamon Baked Milk Sweet Bread, Oven Baked Torrijas de Mona de Pascua
If you read my previous post, with the recipe for Monas de Pascua, Easter Sweet Bread, you’ll remember I mentioned that the Easter sweet bread will last for a couple of days, pretty much like with any bread. And like it happens with bread that is not fresh, you’ll either have to toast it and eat it with jam and butter or your spread of choice, or do something else to it.
I was “face-timing” with my mom and happened to mention my left-over not-so-fresh-anymore Easter sweet bread. What would you do with it, I asked, and no soon I had finished the sentence that she jumped in “Oven baked torrijas!”
Remember my grandma Maravillas, that I mentioned in the post for Monas de Pascua, Easter Sweet Bread? The one that used to buy them for all eleven grandchildren on Easter? Well, she apparently came up with this recipe, to use up her left-over Easter sweet bread (see a theme here?). My grandma —and all Spanish cooks in general— was very resourceful, and always came up with creative and delicious ways to use discarded or leftover ingredients or dishes. Oven baked torrijas is actually a variation of another very typical Easter treat in Spain: torrijas, fried milk sweet bread.
I’ll talk more about torrijas someday, likely closer to Easter next year. In the meantime, the recipe I’m sharing today is a variation of them that is probably a healthier one, in that the bread is not fried, but baked. Once made, the sugar and cinnamon baked milk sweet bread will last for a few days —if you have any left, that is, because I guarantee you, you won’t be able to eat just one. My family ate them as an afternoon snack, and by day’s end, the plate was empty. And if you didn’t make the Easter sweet bread, don’t worry: this recipe works well with a dense, slightly sweet bread, like brioche.
I’m writing this as we travel through North Carolina, having left Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio behind. The landscape is gorgeous, and it keeps changing. The rolling hills in Kentucky and Tennessee allow for no more than pastures for cattle and horses, and I can now see why Indiana, for the most part flat as a cutting board, is perfect for farming. At times, driving through the valleys along these mountains and hills, remind me of the valley where Onteniente sits, surrounded by mountains —rounded, old mountains, which were the sight of my childhood and youth. It almost feels like home being here, remembering the road trips in my parents’ car, my three sisters and I squeezed in the back seat, windows down, no air conditioning, no radio, and definitely no phones, watching the mountains roll by —or the sea as it were—, singing songs or playing word games. As I glance at the back seat, my children entranced watching a movie, I can’t help but think what different memories of a road trip and of childhood in general our two generations will have.
SUGAR AND CINNAMON BAKED MILK SWEET BREAD
Torrijas de Mona de Pascua al Horno
1 Easter Sweet Bread (or other dense bread, like brioche)
2 cups milk
1 stick cinnamon
Peel of 1 lemon (no white part)
1 Tbs butter, or more, as needed
2 Tbs granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the milk, lemon peel and cinnamon and bring to a soft boil. Remove the pan from the heat source and let the milk cool down.
Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.
Generously butter a cookie sheet or oven tray.
Slice the sweet bread into 1 inch-thick slices. If necessary, cut the larger slices in half, so all the pieces are about the same size.
Strain the milk over a wide bowl. Discard the cinnamon stick and the lemon peel.
Working in batches, soak the slices of bread in the milk, 20 to 30 seconds per side, making sure they soak up well. Place them on the cookie sheet. Bake for about 8 minutes. Turn the slices of bread over and bake for another 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool down.
In a wide bowl, mix the sugar and ground cinnamon. One by one, cover the slices of bread in the sugar and cinnamon mixture and arrange on a plate. The torrijas don’t need to be refrigerated, and will be delicious for up to 3 days.
