French Toast

I got an airfryer some time back and I am delighted with it. I wasn’t one for cooking lots of deep-fried food but I had begun to grow tired of mash every evening for dinner. The chips from it turn out so tasty, they are so low in fat and I actually prefer them to deep-fried chips. As an Irish person I eat a lot of potatoes and it was great to have another way to enjoy them. The airfryer also does amazing roast potatoes, I find I use a tbsp of oil for two people, which is about as much as I would have used if cooking in the oven, but its quicker as there is no need to preheat the airfryer.  I also love cooking sausages in it, it’s great that you can throw the sausages in and forget about them till they are cooked, no turning them every couple of minutes, and I am constantly amazed at the amount of fat that comes off them, but they still remain perfectly succulent. Plus, they cook in half the time. However, I am sorry to say that, that was my entire repertoire for the last two years I had my airfryer.

Now I have vowed to increase my repertoire and really get the most out of my airfryer. I have found some recipes from the web and there is a Philips airfryer app that has a few recipes on it. This week I tried French toast. I had never had, or made French toast before so it was all totally new to me.

The first problem I had was the bread sticking to the basket so I would suggest preheating the airfryer and cook at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius to avoid this. I love mixed spice and when the recipe called for a tbsp of cinnamon, I  instead added 1/3tbsp mixed spice and 2/3 cinnamon. I think this gives a more rounded flavour to the dish.

On my first attempt I was starving on finishing, I added bacon to counteract this but also replaced the white bread for brown. I was never a fan of white bread, I don’t like the taste, I find it too bland and I also feel like I just ate fresh air for all the feeding that’s in it. I was worried that changing to brown bread might overpower the cinnamon but I actually preferred the balance of bread to spice. I topped it all off with maple syrup as per original recipe and here it is.

I don’t know if this is a recipe I’d add to the usual’s pile. I used a lot of maple syrup, whole milk, and bacon, this is on top of 2 slices of bread and an egg and even then, I didn’t feel overly full on completing my lunch. Only one slice of bread fit in the airfryer at a time, so I ended up heating up the oven to keep the toast hot while the others cooked. Each sliced of bread takes 6 minutes to cook so for just the two of us it took 25 minutes of cooking time. You also have to turn the bread over every 3 minutes so I was constantly monitoring it and couldn’t go away and do something else.

All in all, I’m glad I tried it but it will go on the very occasional Sunday brunch list.