This is a traditional Christmas dessert I have grown up with. It’s a kind of Pain Perdu (or French Toast), soaked in a sweet syrup with cinnamon. The main difference is that Pain Perdu is soaked in egg and ‘Rabanadas’ are soaked in milk and then coated in egg. And one is mostly eaten at breakfast, whilst the other is a dessert. They are usually fried and the syrup is mainly made of sugar and cinnamon. My Mum and I decided to make some changes and make them slightly healthier by cooking the ‘Rabanadas’ in the oven and adding some interest to the syrup. For this, we took inspiration from a recipe from one of my favourite blogs (As Minhas Receitas) by a wonderful Portuguese cook, called Joana Roque. We made some changes to the syrup, the main one replacing the raisins (because they’re not my favourite thing) with chopped dried figs (which are one of my favourite things).

I have to say that cooking the ‘Rabanadas’ in the oven instead of frying them made a huge difference, with each having a much lighter and fluffier texture. The nutty syrup really makes a difference and it’s up to you what you want to put it in, I think any other nuts and other dried fruits would still work well. If you want to take this dessert out of Christmas, serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, all year round!



