Torrijas

Pour the glass of milk and the glass of cream into a small saucepan.

Add the cinnamon stick and 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and set it over medium heat.

Heat until it just begins to boil, stirring so the sugar dissolves completely.

💡 Bring it just to the boil and no further. Boiled cream can catch on the pan and taste scorched.

Pour it into a wide, shallow dish and lift out the cinnamon stick.

💡 Wide and shallow means every slice lies flat in the liquid. In a deep bowl the ones on top never soak.

With a serrated knife, cut the day-old loaf into slices 2 cm thick.

💡 2 cm is deliberate. Thinner slices go soggy and collapse when you turn them in the pan.

Lay the slices in the warm milk and leave them to rest until they have drunk it up all the way through.

💡 Press one gently with a finger. If the middle is still dry it will taste like plain bread inside a sweet crust.

Spread flour on a plate and beat the 2 eggs in a separate shallow bowl.

Heat olive oil about two fingers deep in a frying pan over medium heat, until a drop of egg dropped in sizzles at once.

💡 Too cool and the torrija drinks oil; too hot and the egg coating burns before the inside warms through. Medium is the target.

Lift a soaked slice out, letting the excess milk drip away, and coat it in flour on both sides.

💡 Flour first, then egg. The flour gives the egg something to grip — without it the coating slides off in the oil.

Dip it straight into the beaten egg, turning to coat all sides, and slide it into the hot oil.

Fry a few at a time without crowding the pan, until the first side is a deep even gold.

💡 Crowding drops the oil temperature and the torrijas stew rather than fry. Two or three at a time is enough.

Turn them using a spoon and a slotted skimmer together, supporting each slice from underneath so it doesn't break.

💡 This two-tool trick is the whole reason Eva's torrijas come out intact. A single spatula tears a soaked slice every time.

Fry the second side to the same colour, then lift them out and drain on kitchen paper.

Mix the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar with the 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and dust it generously over the torrijas.

💡 Dust them while they are still warm so the sugar clings. Cold torrijas shed it onto the plate.