January, it’s been fun!

While I haven’t done all that much baking or cooking, I have been enjoying the lovely bean (thanks to my Flavour of the Month) and generally enjoying the first month of 2008. But January, it’s time for us to part ways.

Before you go, I wanted to send you off with one last tasty treat from Judith Barrett’s Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy. These little gems are called White Bean and Onion Fritters.

Until we meet again, January …

Ciao!

White Bean and Onion Fritters
From Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett.

Note: Depending on the size of your bean patties, you should get anywhere from 8 to 16 fritters.

1 cup dried cannellini beans (soaked overnight)
3 tbsp. olive oil, plus more for frying
1 small onion, finely chopped
salt and pepper
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

Place the beans in a large pot and cover with 6 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer beans uncovered for about an hour. The beans should be tender.

Drain the beans and place them in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the beans are broken down and you have a puree. Place the puree in a large bowl.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet and then add the onion. Saute until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes or so. Remove the onions from the heat and add to the puree. Season with salt and pepper. Add 2 tablespoons of the all-purpose flour to the mixture. Stir everything together until you have a smooth mixture.

In the same skillet, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle some flour on your hands and begin forming the puree into balls the size of golf balls. Don’t worry if it’s sticky.

Place the balls of puree in the flour and lightly coat them, all the while pressing down to form a patty (about half an inch thick).

Heat the olive oil and when hot, begin adding the patties. Cook them for about 5 minutes on each side. Resist the temptation to move them constantly as they fry. After each batch, you will have to add some more olive oil to the pan.

Once cooked, place the fritters on a paper towel-lined plate to absorb any excess oil. Sprinkle with a bit more salt and serve warm.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the first Daring Baker challenge for 2008! Wow! It seems like yesterday that we were just getting ready for the holidays and it’s hard to believe that the first month of the new year is already almost over.

This month’s host is one of our longest standing members, the lovely Jen of The Canadian Baker. As those of you who follow the Daring Bakers’ exploits know, we’ve had some significant challenges in the past including croissants and bagels. I was understandably quite pleased when I saw that Jen had chosen the lemon meringue pie as the challenge for January 2008.

I’ve made lemon meringue pies many times before but I’m always happy to try a new version. Jen’s version was quite straightforward as it featured an all-butter crust, a creamy lemon curd and a very light meringue topping.

Jen gave us the option of making a large pie or smaller tartlets. I, of course, chose the tartlets because I’m always happy to try something mini.

All the separate elements of the tartlets came together very well for me. So I instead set my mind to the challenge of assembling the tartlets and decorating them.

Once I’d baked my pastry rounds for the base, I decided to create a shell border on each one with the meringue. Not only would this be decorative, but it would help keep my lemon curd in place.

I carefully spooned as much lemon curd as I could into the confines of each meringue border and then, using a pastry bag, I decorated the tops of the tartlets with various designs in meringue.

Once the tartlets came out of the oven after browning the meringue, I thought they looked cute but that they needed an extra touch. During the week, I’d visited one of my favourite Toronto stores, Harvest Wagon, which just happens to sell edible flowers. I splurged and decided that the flowers would look lovely with the tartlets.

But I wanted to give them some sort of extra touch so I sugared them. If you’ve never sugared fruit or flowers, it’s very easy. All you need is a clean paint brush, an egg white and some sugar. I beat the egg white until frothy and then used the paint brush to dab egg white on the petals of the flowers. I then very gently sprinkled them with sugar and let them air dry for a couple of hours.

Not only were the flowers a tasty and unusual treat, I thought they looked very pretty with the tartlets.

So how did the tartlets taste? They were pretty good. While I don’t think this version of lemon meringue pie is as good as the one I like to make, it was still tasty. And best of all, working with the bright taste and scent of lemon just reminded me that spring isn’t all that far away.

Was it the most daring of challenges for me? Not really. Was it fun? You bet. And that’s what baking is supposed to be about.

Thank you to Jen for a wonderful challenge. Please take a moment to visit the other Daring Bakers to see how they did. Have a wonderful week!

Ciao!

For the lemon meringue pie recipe, please visit Jen’s site.

Finally!

For the first time, I am finally participating in one of the most famous events in foodblogworldom, Hay Hay it’s Donna Day! created by our dear Barbara of Winosandfoodies.com.

This month’s event, the 17th installment, is hosted by sweet Joey (whom I love) of 80 Breakfasts. And Joey has very wisely chosen the theme of pizza.

Who doesn’t love pizza? I have yet to meet a person that doesn’t love the idea of baked dough with topping on it. If you do know someone who doesn’t love pizza, feel free to send them my way for an intensive course in the beauty and glory of pizza.

I’ve been eating the stuff for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my mother would make pizza almost every week. Occasionally, when we were really lucky, we’d get taken out to one of the local Italian restaurants that made a good version of the famous thin-crust Italian pizza. And of course once I went to Italy and had my very first taste of the real deal, I was even more in love than ever before.

I finally decided to put my mother’s teachings to good use in my 20s and started making pizza on my own. Once you get the hang of a basic pizza dough, it’s almost impossible not to make incredible pizza.

Seriously.

And of course the best part is experimenting with toppings. My favourite pizza is still the simplest one imagineable. I like it with a bit of tomato sauce, a light sprinkling of mozzarella, a drizzle of hot oil and some fresh basil.

For the event, Joey provided a pizza dough recipe from Donna Hay’s Modern Classics (Book 1). I’m a huge Donna Hay fan. Her magazines are like little of works of art. I enjoy buying them simply for the pleasure of leafing through them. I also appreciate the clean, fresh approach to food that her magazine embodies.

Since this is my first time participating in HHDD, and since I’ve made savoury pizza so often, I decided I’d go out on a limb and use the pizza dough recipe to create a sweet pizza!

Almost immediately, I decided that I would use a technique I learned when I was reviewing Carol Walter’s incredible Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. While looking through that cookbook, I found a recipe for a Dimpled Sugar Cake that was made by creating dimples in risen dough and then filling those dimples with a bit of brown sugar and butter. During baking, the butter and sugar caramelize to create a sugared topping that’s lovely.

I wanted to do this with the pizza but I wanted more in terms of flavour so I decided to add almond. I did this in two ways: first by rubbing some pure almond extract into the brown sugar that I used for the pizza and second by sprinkling some sliced almonds over the top halfway through baking.

Once I’d decided what flavours I wanted for my pizza, I started thinking about presentation. Do I want another pizza cut into wedges? Nah!

Instead, I settled on the idea of pizza sticks that could be dipped in something and of course that something had to be chocolate! I had some lovely dark chocolate on hand so I simply melted a bit and placed it alongside the pizza sticks for dipping.

What a delicious treat! And further proof that pizza must be considered one of the most adaptable and versatile foods out there.

Happy HHDD everyone!

Ciao!

For the pizza dough recipe, visit Joey’s blog.

Technorati tags: HHDD, pizza

I must admit it took me quite awhile to begin writing this post because I kept having fun with the title. It’s amazing how many witty (or not-so-witty depending on how you see it) pun-filled titles one can create using the word “nuts”.

And enough said about that.

Okay, so here we are with a return to Magazine Mondays. It’s been a few weeks since I posted another recipe from my ever dwindling (at least I hope it’s dwindling) pile of magazines. I must admit my decision to focus on actually trying the recipes that I bookmark in all sorts of print publications is working out well.

Today I bring you yet another recipe from Ricardo Larrivée’s Holidays 2007 issue of Ricardo magazine. This is a recipe for Nut Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze. The cake itself is a very standard sour cream cake. It calls for applesauce, which is always interesting in a cake and hazelnut or walnut oil. That is in addition to two cups of nuts also incorporated into the cake. To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed with it. Between the nut oil and the nuts, it’s a pretty expensive ingredients list for a cake that didn’t pack a huge punch.

What I was impressed with, however, was the glaze. As I made it and then as I licked it off my fingers and every other surface in my kitchen (long story … don’t ask), I thought to myself, “Hmmm … I see many great possibilities for this glaze.”

So while I will spare you the cake recipe, I’m happy to share the glaze recipe. Have a great week everyone!

Ciao!

Brown Sugar Glaze
From the Holidays 2007 issue of Ricardo magazine.

1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Place the brown sugar, maple syrup, butter and heavy cream in a small pot. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Keep an eye on the mixture because it can easily boil over.

Once it boils, let it boil for about a minute and then remove from the heat. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes.

Place the mixture in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat with the paddle attachment on low, slowly adding the icing sugar. Continue beating until it begins to thicken (about 6 or 7 minutes). Add the vanilla and mix for a few more seconds.

Pour the glaze over the surface of your choice be it cake or anything else you desire.

Enjoy!

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve fallen in love with Judith Barrett’s cookbook Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy. If I could take a week off and cook my way through the book from cover to cover, I would.

Today’s recipe is a dish that I’ve wanted to try for many years. I’d heard about pasta with beans long before I bought Barrett’s cookbook. Now I’m not talking about the familiar pasta e fagioli, which tends to be a soupier dish. I’m talking about pasta with a sauce made of beans. This type of dish is not common in the regions of Italy where my parents are from, but Barrett includes a recipe in her book for pasta in a red bean sauce and I just couldn’t resist.

As with almost all the recipes in the book this one begins with soaking beans overnight. I used red kidney beans as the recipe instructed but I’m sure you could try this with a variety of different beans. After their overnight soak, I simmered the beans for about two hours with some bay leaves and some garlic cloves. Barrett explains in her recipe that the beans should almost be falling apart. This will help create a creamier sauce for the pasta.

I set the beans aside and went ahead with the rest of the recipe. I sauteed pancetta, onion and celery in olive oil while I cooked my pasta. The recipe calls for tagliatelle but I had penne on hand and decided to use those. Once the pancetta was browned and the onion and celery had softened, I drained the beans and added them to the sauce. I flavoured the sauce with pepper flakes and salt. Once the pasta was cooked, I added it to the sauce along with some parsley and lots of Parmigiano Reggiano.

It was delicious! The beans broke down enough to create a thick, creamy coating for the penne and the pancetta added a lovely flavour to the pasta as well. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Ciao!

Pasta with Red Bean Sauce
Adapted from Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett.

Note: This recipe will make 4 servings.

1/2 cup red kidney beans, soaked overnight (at least 8 hours)
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 cup olive oil
4 slices pancetta, about a 1/4 inch thick, cut into tiny pieces
1/2 red onion, chopped finely
1 celery stalk, chopped finely
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
penne (or the pasta of your choice)
a few tablespoons Parmigiano Reggiano
chopped parsely (optional)

After having soaked the beans overnight or for at least 8 hours, place the beans in a large pot and cover with 6 cups of water. Add the bay leaves and the garlic cloves.

Bring the beans to a boil over high heat and then reduce the heat to medium-low, keeping the beans at a simmer.

Simmer for an hour and a half, stirring frequently.

Once the time is up, turn the heat off and set the beans aside. Leave them in the water with the lid on.

Set a large pot of water to boil for your pasta. While you wait for the water to boil, prepare the rest of the sauce by heating the olive oil in a large, wide saucepan.

Once the oil is hot, lower the heat to medium and add the pancetta, onion and celery, stirring often. Be sure not to burn the mixture. Cook until the pancetta is browned and the onion and celery have softened. This should take between 15 and 20 minutes.

Drain the beans and add them to the pancetta mixture. Discard the bay leaves but add the garlic cloves to the mixture as well. Mash them up so that they flavour the sauce. Add the red pepper flakes and salt to taste. Cook for 5 minutes and then turn the heat off while you cook your pasta.

Once the water for the pasta has boiled, cook the pasta according to the package directions. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the bean and pancetta mixture. Turn the heat on low as you combine the pasta with the sauce. Add the parsley and the Parmigiano Reggiano and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

These little buttons of great taste may not look like much, in fact they may not look like anything at all thanks to the poor photo (my apologies), but I was so anxious to eat them that I had to set the camera down and get to munching.

If you’re wondering what they are, they’re roasted fava beans! I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried roasted fava beans before or even heard of them but for me, roasted fava beans are a treasured childhood snack. They would often grace our table whenever we had guests. My mother would set them out along with nuts and other finger foods to be enjoyed with a glass of homemade wine.

This was before entertaining became the stylish business that it has evolved into today. I remember when a few slices of homemade sausage, some walnuts, some dried figs, some cheese and a glass of vino were the standards of entertaining in my home and in the homes of family members and friends.

While we never made roasted fava beans at home, we’d find them at our local Italian grocer. After awhile, they seemed to fall out of favour and were difficult to find. Recently, I was so happy to see them on a store shelf again. And when I came across the recipe for Roasted Fava Beans in the cookbook I’ve chosen as my Flavour of the Month, I couldn’t wait to try them.

Every time I cook with beans I always ask myself, “Why don’t I cook beans more often?” They’re so easy to make, so filling, so good for you and so satisfying! A pot of beans bubbling on the stove is as comforting as anything I can think of.

These fava beans are a delicious snack and a healthy one at that. I tried the recipe a few times and here are a few tips I picked up along the way. While fava beans can be large, you’ll often find very large dried fava beans in stores. Don’t use those. Use regular sized beans as the large ones may be too hard after roasting. Another tip I picked up is that after soaking the fava beans overnight and trimming off the black tip, I soaked the beans again for a few more hours. It helped to soften the beans even more before roasting. If, after soaking the beans twice, you come across some that are still hard, just discard them. Roasted fava beans are good, but I don’t think it’s worth breaking a few teeth over!

The original recipe calls for these to be flavoured with a bit of salt but I like my beans spicy so I hope you’ll enjoy my adaptation of a snack that’s very dear to me.

Ciao!

Roasted Fava Beans
Adapted from Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett.

1 cup dried fava beans
water
2 tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
any spice of your choosing

Place the dried fava beans in a large bowl and cover them with water. Let the beans soak overnight or for at least 8 hours.

After the beans have soaked, drain them and rinse them. With a paring knife, remove the black tip of the bean. Place the beans back in the bowl and cover them with water again. Soak for another 2 hours.

Rinse the beans again. If you come across any that are still hard, then discard them.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the fava beans on the parchment.

Roast for about an hour, keeping an eye on the beans so that they don’t burn. The beans will be browned and crisp when they’re done.

Take them out of the oven and put them in a bowl, immediately pouring over the olive oil. Mix to coat the beans with oil and then add salt and pepper to taste along with whatever spice you like. You could try oregano, red pepper flakes or paprika!

Enjoy!

Talk about coming down from a high! I want to thank everyone for all of your incredible comments and support after my post about the cupcakes I baked for my coworker’s wedding. It was quite an experience and I’m looking forward to where it leads.

As exciting as it was, it was also exhausting. I spent most of Sunday and Monday trying to absorb it all. I couldn’t even begin to think about going back into the kitchen.

But now that it’s all sunk in, it’s time to get back to cooking. For the January 2008 Flavour of the Month, I chose the book Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett as my focus for the month.

When I looked at The Overburdened Bookshelf for this month’s choice, I knew that I wanted this month to be about comfort. I feel the urge for dishes that are slow-cooked and dense. I want to eat foods that stick to your ribs and help keep the cold at bay. I also wanted to finally showcase some recipes from what is a lovely book. As someone who once worked in publishing, I am mightily impressed by books that not only help you to produce beautiful food, but that are works of art in and of themselves. From the cover to the paper to the way the book is printed, it’s an extremely attractive piece of work.

For my first recipe, I couldn’t resist the siren call of chickpeas. I adore chickpeas. Growing up, one of my mother’s quickest and best side dishes on a weeknight was a simple salad of chickpeas and chopped red onions dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Such a versatile food, you can do a million things with chickpeas from adding them to pasta or soup, making dips with them or roasting them for a snack.

I chose to try a recipe for a Whipped Chickpea and Potato Spread. Like my mother’s salad, this was almost ridiculously easy to put together and it vanished in minutes. And while I am not one to focus on the health benefits of food (we’re all adults … we all know what’s good for us), chickpeas are incredibly nutritious which makes this dip all the more attractive.

Enjoy the month of beans!

Ciao!

Whipped Chickpea and Potato Spread
Adapted slightly from Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett.

Note: This makes about 2 cups of spread. Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days.

1 cup chickpeas (you can use canned or you can use dried chickpeas that have been soaked overnight)
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 dried bay leaf
1 medium-sized potato, cut into quarters
one small piece of onion, finely chopped (the truth is you can use as much onion as you like …)
extra virgin olive oil (about half a cup)
salt and pepper to taste

Place the chickpeas, the garlic clove and the bay leaf in a pot and add 5 to 6 cups water. Bring to a boil.

If using chickpeas that were soaked overnight, simmer for one hour. If using canned chickpeas, you can proceed right away to the next step.

Once the chickpeas are tender (after having cooked for an hour if you used dried chickpeas), add the potato and cook for another 20 minutes or until the potato is tender.

Drain the mixture and let sit for about half an hour to cool a bit.

Discard the bay leaf and put everything else (including the chopped onion) into the bowl of a food processor. Process the mixture for about a minute to mash it up.

With the processor running, begin adding the olive oil through the feed tube. Continue adding until the mixture is creamy.

Add salt and pepper to taste and blend to combine.

Spoon the mixture into a bowl and drizzle with a bit of olive oil before serving.

Enjoy!

For those of you that visit often you’ll know that last year I had my first experiences baking and being paid for it and those experiences sowed the seeds of a goal of mine: to start a baking/catering business from home.

While those were heady experiences, they didn’t really amount to anything and that’s mostly my fault. After the initial euphoria faded, I became busy with other aspects of my life and didn’t focus on my goal to begin creating a business plan that included this blog.

I put aside important items on my “business to-do” list like creating proper business cards, working out a fee schedule and figuring out how I could use my blog to advertise what I want to do.

So in early December, a wave of guilt hit me. This was quickly followed by a sense of hopelessness as I wondered where my next opportunity would come from. And then, into this baking gloom, wandered my dear coworker L. who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: bake 50 cupcakes for her wedding!

Half of the cupcakes L. ordered were to be a citrus flavour and the other half were to be mocha or chocolate. The cupcakes, to be baked in silver liners, were to be decorated with icing flowers, half with yellow flowers and the other half with blue.

And that’s it. The rest was up to me!

At first this terrified me. At one point I started inundating L. with questions about icing … did she want a traditional buttercream or a swiss buttercream? How about an Italian meringue icing? Or did she think her guests might like a cream cheese icing? When I saw the glazed look in her eyes, that’s when I knew that it was time to stop being a wimp and step up to the baking challenge!

Summing up my own baking experience in the little Cream Puff kitchen, I first decided that the best flavour combination would be orange cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes. For the orange cupcakes, I used a very basic butter cake recipe to which I added orange zest, fresh orange juice and a bit of Grand Marnier to make the cupcakes a bit more appropriate for the occasion. For the chocolate cupcakes, I went with a basic chocolate cake to which I added Frangelico, which is a hazelnut-flavoured liqueur. I think chocolate and coffee make a marvelous duo (this is for a wedding after all) and thought the Frangelico would be a nice touch.

Deciding what to make for the base of the cupcakes was the easy part. The icing was a bit more challenging. L. specified that she was looking for a light-coloured icing for both sets of cupcakes. I settled on what has become my new all-start favourite icing in the world: the buttercream icing from Nick Malgieri’s Perfect Cakes. I was introduced to this icing about a month ago in the Daring Baker’s December challenge.

This buttercream starts off with egg whites, sugar and a pinch of salt that are heated over hot water. The mixture is then transferred to a mixer and beaten until the egg whites thicken and cool. At that point you begin adding the butter … lots o’ butter. After another almost 10 minutes, you have a buttercream that is thick, silky and a joy to work with. For the orange cupcakes, I flavoured the buttercream with vanilla extract and a drop of orange oil. For the chocolate cupcakes, I used vanilla extract only. I briefly toyed with the idea of adding some more liqueur to the icing for the chocolate cupcakes but decided against it.

Having navigated the cupcake and icing waters, it was time to turn to the final obstacle: decorating the cupakes. Yikes!

My decorating skills are mediocre at best. I try to make things look interesting and like to use embellishments that strike my fancy, but I realized that if I’m going to make a business out of this, I’ve got to work on some basic decorating skills.

Thanks to a gift from my cousin, I took some basic Wilton cake decorating courses a while ago. So I pulled out the little kit that came with the course, logged on to the Wilton web site, and launched my decorating career.

I knew that L. wanted yellow flowers for the orange cupcakes. At first I thought I’d do something simple that wouldn’t cause me too much heartache but then I came across the pattern for sunflowers. After reading the directions I decided that at the very least, I could give this a try. I made up a batch of royal icing, tinted most of it yellow (petals) and some of it brown (flower centre) and off I went. While my first few “sunflowers” were laughable, over the course of the next few hours, they got better. In fact, I made quite a few pretty sunflowers so that I actually had enough to decorate 30 cupcakes. My hand was ready to fall off from squeezing the piping bag, mind you, but no one ever said success came easy!

For the chocolate cupcakes, L. specified that she wanted blue flowers. I decided to go with a very pretty and elegant flower, the Forget-Me-Not, which I tinted blue. After conquering the sunflowers, these were considerably more straightforward.

When it came time to ice the cupcakes, I decided go for two different looks. While I’ve never met L.’s partner, I’ve known L. for many years and know her to be a very funny person with a very unique outlook. With this in mind, I wanted the orange cupcakes to bring a smile to everyone’s face. So I started with a thin icing base to which I added an icing mound (or mountain as I like to think of it). I planted the sunflower at the base of the mountain and added some leaves. I crowned the “mountains” with some orange peel.

I wanted to give the chocolate cucpakes a wintry feel as well. I iced the cupcakes with a layer of rosettes and then piped a large rosette in the centre on top of which I carefully lay the blue flowers. I wanted to take a better picture of the chocolate cupcakes but when I removed the lid for the orange cupcakes, it broke, and I was afraid the same would happen with the chocolate cupcakes. So I took a picture through the lid as best I could.

Okay. So I’m never going to win cake decorator of the year. But I certainly tried my best. And in the end, I thought the cupcakes looked great if I may say so myself.

I have to tell you … I’m exhausted. There’s a coat of sugar on pretty much everything in our kitchen. I think I’ve been to about 20 stores in the last three days looking for various items for the cupcakes. And I’ve also discovered that gel food colouring stains. Badly.

But you know what, I’m thrilled, too. I’m exhilarated, in fact. I feel like I climbed that icing mountain!

Ciao!

Buona fine e buon principio … I hope you had a happy end to 2007 and a happy beginning to 2008!

From Cream Puff and family, I send you all my very best wishes for a healthy year, filled with new pursuits, lots of fun and as much delicious food as you can handle.

My new year started off with some creamy Orange French Toast. Tanti auguri!

Ciao!

Orange French Toast

Note: You can make french toast with any bread you like but I love to make this particular recipe with Pandoro, which is an Italian panettone. Unlike other panettones it does not have raisins or candied fruit. It’s an eggy, rich bread that makes a very luxurious French toast. This recipe will serve 2.

4 slices of Pandoro, about half an inch thick
1/2 cup whole milk (you can use half-and-half cream if you want to be really decadent)
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. sugar
1 tbsp. orange zest
the juice of half an orange
a dash of cinnamon
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
creme fraiche, icing sugar and additional orange zest for garnish

In a large, wide bowl, combine the milk, egg yolks, sugar, orange zest, orange juice and cinnamon. Beat well with a whisk until mixed.

In a large pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, dip your first Pandoro slice in the cream mixture.

Saute the Pandoro in the butter for a few minutes on each side. Transfer to a plate while you cook the remaining Pandoro slices.

For a special garnish, mix some creme fraiche with lemon zest and spoon onto the french toast. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

Enjoy!