Zesty Cara Cara French Toast

I actually like vegan french toast better than the traditional recipe. It becomes much more crisp and is less sensitive to burning or overcooking. If you don't add the orange, you can even save the batter for the next day. This one is a mixture of the "Fronch Toast" recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance and something on the menu at Kate's Kitchen near my house.

You'll need:

• Some bread. I generally use whatever we have, but steer clear of anything other than french bread if you're going to use a roll type bread. If you go the pre-sliced loaf route, you'll need aprox. 4-6 for this recipe depending on size.
  
• 1/2 cup soy creamer
  
• 1/2 cup your favorite non-milk milk milk (Almond milk is my favorite)
  
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
  
• 1/4 chickpea flour
  
• An orange (I used Cara Cara because that's what I had, it's good with any orange though)

Mix together your soy creamer and corn starch until smooth. Add your non-milk milk milk choice, then your chickpea flour. Keep mixing until incorporated, don't worry about a few chickpea flour clumps, it's all good. Grab your orange and zest about a 1/3 of the rind, around 2 tablespoons worth I would say. You can add more or less as you wish. Peel the orange and squeeze 2 or 3 wedges into the batter and mix one last time. Time to fry!


Heat a large pan on med-hi heat and add enough canola or vegetable oil to form a thin layer. Once the oil is heated, dip your bread into the batter so that is completely coated. Toss it into the pan (be careful--hot oil burns a lot)! Flip when it is nice and brown, like the image above. Between flippings, prepare any fresh fruit and granola you'd like to use.


You can preheat the oven to like 200 degrees to keep it warm while you fry the rest of the bread, but I'm usually too lazy for that. I usually serve with some maple syrup, the fresh fruit, and granola sprinkled on top. Enjoy!