Stuffed Vegan French Toast – Cashew Cream and Raspberries

It has been absolutely ages since I have had french toast. I miss it. So much. So when I set out to make a vegan french toast, it had to be, well, spectacular.

A super-fab vegan french toast

Let me break it down for you. Thick, ultra-fluffy slabs of vegan brioche, sliced open and stuffed with a zesty and impossibly-creamy whipped cashew cream. All topped off with fresh (and juicy!) raspberries.

Uh-huh. Told you it was super fab.

Names schmames…

So, maybe I lied. I have never actually had french toast. All my life, whenever we dipped leftover sandwich bread in eggs and vanilla and fried them in a sizzling pan with a knob of salted butter, we called it Bombay toast.

French toast, bombay toast, eggy bread, torrija… whatever you call this breakfast classic, you know how good it is. So what makes this vegan french toast a really, really good slice of french toast?

1.  A golden, crispy exterior
2. An ethereally soft core, saturated with all that custard
3. Perfect served with a glug of amber maple syrup or a lil’ dusting of icing sugar.

Mmm yes…

The bread

French toast can be made with pretty much any bread. With a baguette, sourdough, challah, brioche, a sandwich loaf, babka…*wink wink*. But the most important thing about the bread you use in french toast is that it’s stale.

Fresh bread, fluffy and spongey, soaks up the custard like a sponge. A little too much custard. If you use freshly sliced bread, it makes soggy french toast. And soggy french toast really isn’t that great.

Stale bread, on the other hand, soaks up just the right amount of custard. So you want your slices dry. While this is a great way to use any leftover brioche you have hanging around, stale bread also loses a bit of its flavour. So if you’re willing to put in a bit more effort, I suggest drying your slices of bread in the oven at 120C, for five minutes on each side.

Also, please, use thick slices! Thin ones fall apart in the pan, and you hardly get enough ooey-gooey custardy core with them. Especially these stuffed ones, you need a good chunk of bread to get a good amount of cashew cream in them.

Where to get brioche?

For the brioche in this recipe, you can use any store-bought vegan brioche or a sweet loaf. I cannot find any brioche around me that doesn’t have eggs or butter in it, so I make my own! I just make a dough like in my babka post (without the chocolate or pear filling), and braid the bread instead of twisting it into a babka. Just squish the braided dough into a greased and lined loaf pan after shaping, let it proof for a further 30 minutes until it has risen to the rim of the pan, then bake it at 180C for 40 minutes.

If you are making a loaf especially for this recipe, remember to slice your bread early and toast it in the oven (see above) to dry it out, or use it when it gets a little stale.

The perfect plant-based custard

So, how are you going to take the eggs and milk out of a recipe which uses so much of them? For the perfect custard for my vegan french toast I have used

1. Aquafaba, to mimic the protein that eggs give the custard
2. Chickpea flour (a.k.a. gram flour or besan flour), to thicken it and for colour
3. Nutritional yeast. While this is optional, use it if you have it. It adds a little bit of that egg-y flavour

If you’re worried about all these new, foreign-sounding ingredients, they aren’t too difficult to find! Chickpea flour can be found in the world food aisle of most supermarkets, Asian stores or health food shops!

Vegan Valentines

Okay, okay! I’ll stop tempting you. But this is also the last recipe of my vegan valentines series. Make this for someone special, like a special pal, your mum, bae.. or make it for yourself. It’s perfect for anyone who needs a lil TLC in the A.M.

If you’re interested in any of my other 3 recipes for valentines day, they are…

Pearl Barley Hummus Bowls
Pear and Chocolate Babka
Slutty Brownies

Mmmmm…. yes.

Let’s get down to it

p.s. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my recipes, the ingredients are separated out according to when you will use them. So don’t feel confused if you see butter listed twice! Just work your way down the list and you will know which quantity to use first.

Vegan French Toast - Stuffed with Cashew Cream and Raspberries

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

30 mins

 

These decadent, thick slices of vegan French toast are absolutely delightful, especially when stuffed full of cashew cream and fresh, juicy raspberries. The perfect breakfast!

Author: Sasha Gill

Recipe type: Vegan

Serves: 2

Ingredients

Cashew Cream

• 1 cup cashews, soaked for 6 hours - overnight*
• ¼ cup soy milk
• ¼ cup coconut cream
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• ½ tsp lemon juice
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

French Toast

• 2 slices of brioche, each about 1½ - 2 inches thick
• ¼ cup aquafaba
• ¼ cup soy milk
• 2 tbsp chickpea flour
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast, optional
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• A pinch of cinnamon
• Vegan butter, for frying

To top

• 1 punnet of raspberries

Instructions

1. First, make the cashew cream. Drain the cashews, then blend with the soy milk, coconut cream, syrup, lemon juice and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Set this aside for now.
2. Prepare your slices of brioche by slicing each piece into half down the middle, but not cutting it all the way through. You should end up with a piece that is almost cut into two, almost like a sandwich but is joined along one edge. This just forms a nice pocket which can be stuffed with cream later.
3. Rinse the blender, then add the aquafaba, soy milk, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon to it. Blend until smooth, then pour the 'custard' mix into a shallow bowl.
4. Heat up a non-stick pan over medium-high heat and place a knob of butter in the pan. Take a slice of brioche and soak each side of the bread in the custard for about 30 seconds. Fry the slice in the pan until golden brown on both sides. Repeat with the other slice.
5. If you have remaining custard (depends on how much you soaked each slice and how big your slices were), you can always slice a little bit more brioche to use it up.
6. To serve, stuff a generous amount of cashew cream into the cut you made in the middle of each slice, and top with some raspberries. You can add some icing sugar, more syrup or cashew cream to the top as well!

Notes

* If you have forgotten to soak the cashews, don't worry! I do that all the time. Just boil the cashews for 15 minutes instead to speed up the softening process.

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