When this time of the year rolls around, I’m always up for sharing a new Torrija recipe made with homemade plant milk. Thanks to all of your messages and suggestions during all these years, we’ve been able to greatly improve all the recipes and cooking tips in this blog. Today’s recipe is all about these delicious Torrijas (ie: Spanish-style French toasts) made with the most delicious vanilla-infused horchata. They’re such a delicious vegan dessert which is also easy to make – here’s to hoping you all will love it!

Ingredients:

• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 litre of water
• 200g tigernuts (soaked for 8 hours in the fridge)
• 6 ripe dates
• 4 spoonfuls of chickpea flour (non-heaped)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Torrija-style bread (ie: bread with little crust and lots of crumb)
• ½ cup vegetable oil

Instructions to make the milk:

1. Let’s start by infusing the water with the vanilla bean. Heat the water, and when it starts boiling, add the vanilla bean chopped into small pieces and remove the saucepan with the water from heat. Cover it with a lid for 10 minutes and then, remove the lid and wait for the infusion to completely cool (which will take at least 20-30 minutes).
2. While we wait for the infusion to cool, we chop the dates and add them to the Vegan Milker filtering attachment, along with the tigernuts (which should have been soaked in water for at least 8 hours).
3. Now, here’s the important part. Once the vanilla infusion has reached an optimum temperature, DO NOT ADD IT TO THE JAR, but to the filtering attachment instead. This way, we’ll be straining the milk at the same time we blend, in order to avoid lumps and discoloration in the final product.
4. Another option would be to strain the infused water previously, and then pour it into the jar, but we find the first option easier, as it means less dishes to do!
5. Now, it’s time to make the horchata following our usual recipe (you can check our traditional horchata video here), but using the infused water instead of plain water.
6. Once the horchata has been made, we can chill it in the fridge overnight so it will be tastier next day.

As you will see, this version will turn out darker than store-bought horchata, which is due to the presence of both dates and vanilla. It will also last for about 4 days in the fridge, getting more and more delicious as days go by. It’s so hard not to drink it straight away and use it for the Torrijas!

Instructions to make the Torrijas:

1. Cut the bread into slices about 2cm thick. To make this recipe, I’ve used Swiss bund with the top cut off, so it’s easier for them to soak in the milk, but you can use any other type of stale, drier bread.
2. Place the slices on a tray, soaking in a bit of horchata. For reference, it took me a glass of horchata to soak three buns. This will depend on the bread you’re using, but you should always make sure that you use enough liquid to have the crumbs completely wet. Regarding time, it will take about 15 minutes with the Swiss buns, and half and hour if using stale bread.
3. Do not completely submerge the bread in the horchata, as it might cause them to break. This way, it’s also easier to tell when we should flip the bread.
4. While we leave the slices to soak, we can prepare the vegan “egg”. To do so, we need to mix 4 tablespoons of chickpea flour (they should not be heaped, this is very important), with 4 tablespoons of water. When this mixture is fully combined, we can add a bit of ground cinnamon to add some extra flavor. Texture-wise, this mixture should remind you of real, whisked eggs.
5. Once the bread slices are wet, we cover them in the egg mixture and then fry in some oil. If you wish, you can dust them with some extra cinnamon and eat them warm.

And just like that, you have a new recipe to make vegan Torrijas! Which is your favorite milk to use?