Gypsy toast

Gypsy toast

I don’t usually go in for massive and celebratory breakfasts for Chris and I – the blini being an exception – but this weekend I am starting in style; with Nigella’s version of gypsy toast. There is good reason to celebrate, though. I have finished the second week of my primary school experience and am due to register on my PGCE course on Monday. Therefore, this will be my last “free” weekend before all the hard work begins and it would be nice to ease myself into it all gently (and probably fatteningly)! Nigella says that she rather loves this with maple syrup and bacon and so I, too, am making the toast with both of these accompaniments.
This actually marks the end of a section; the “bread” section. You wouldn’t believe quite how much I have enjoyed eating from this section. I have loved all of the suggestions and recipes and it has taught me an awful lot. Firstly and most importantly, the section has taught me how to make fresh, homemade bread, but I have also learned other techniques and about other tastes, including the concept of pairing fresh bread with one huge wedge of cheese and how to make and enjoy fresh, homemade bread sauce. Most importantly, however, now that I know how to make fresh bread, I won’t be put off from doing so in the future and will happily and confidently make my own bread from now on.
I am also looking forward to making this recipe, specifically. We do actually eat this a lot at home, but it is interesting to consider how differently we do so. When we make gypsy toast (or eggy bread as Chris calls it), it is usually a savoury adjunct to a dinner which usually consists of hot sausages, pork chops….whatever. The difference is that Chris never uses milk with the beaten egg, adds a good grating of black pepper to the beaten egg and always fries the bread in olive oil and never butter. You can see how just a few changes turn a simple recipe from sweet into savoury and visa versa. I am looking forward to trying this recipe another way.
In fact, Nigella’s method is very similar to one of the first Nigella recipes that I ever made from Nigella Bites (my first Nigella book); pancakes with wafer bacon and maple syrup. As I say, it was one of the first of her recipes that I ever made, and I adored it instantly. I am sure it is one of the reasons why I am the Nigella convert that I am today.
So then, this is our Saturday breakfast; hear it and weep; Gypsy toast with maple syrup and bacon. YUM!

Ingredients: All of the ingredients are easily purchased anywhere. Someone called Mimi Sheraton says that this is truly best with challah and Nigella agrees (and also suggests brioche). She does say, though, that “whatever you have to hand is just fine.” Good for me, because I did my shopping at 23:00 in Tescos and the entire stock of brioche had sold out and so we substituted with a loaf of Hovis Farmhouse white bread. I tried to purchase some of the nicest bacon and maple syrup that I could find; so I used Tescos Finest unsmoked drycure back bacon rashers and Citadelle organic 100% pure maple syrup, both of which seemed lovely.

Price: The bread, eggs, butter, bacon and maple syrup totalled £9.10. However, most of that was for the bacon and maple syrup and there is no need to go to such extravagance as I did. You could simply make the gypsy toast alone if you like, or use cheaper bacon, maple syrup or both. The only ingredient that I didn’t need to purchase was milk, as we already have enough milk at home.



(Bacon and maple syrup)


Method: Now, this is very easy to make and I’m sure that you probably already know how to make gypsy toast (I certainly did). I may be able to give you some guidance on quantities, though. I used 3 beaten eggs and a good glug of milk to make the eggy wash for soaking. Nigella mentions that she uses special biscuit cutters for cutting out shapes of bread, and so I decided to follow suit. This is quite annoying because the cutters I have are so big and strangely shaped that I’m afraid I did waste a lot of bread! In fact, I used 6 loaves of bread and from this I made 6 owls (small-ish), 1 moon (medium-sized) and 6 stars (very big).
Basically, all one does is dip the shapes in the eggy-milk and fry. And do be careful; because the shapes (probably) have funny edges and if they are submerged for too long then they will probably start breaking up and falling to pieces. I just quickly “dunked” mine. In terms of frying, they don’t take very long at all, and in fact they turn golden brown on top when they are cooked (see my pics). I found mine to take about 4 minutes a side for the larger shapes.
I served each plate with 3 rashers of bacon each and a really good drizzle of maple syrup (about 2 tablespoons per plate).

(Eggs beaten with milk)


Result: WOW! This breakfast was absolutely fabulous! Honestly, it was one of the nicest breakfasts that I have ever eaten. I would never have considered using gypsy bread in this capacity, as a sweet breakfast treat with maple syrup and bacon, but it worked very well indeed. Firstly, must I say that they *look* amazing; the shapes looked gorgeous; golden brown and oozingly eggy and it was such a great idea to use children’s biscuit cutters; they looked fantastic. Just a bit of fun, of course, but they do look really pretty.
The gypsy toast itself was absolutely lovely. The bread was soft and had a lovely golden brown crunchy crust. The eggy-milk gave the bread a moist and light texture (almost as if it was injected with melted cheese). The shapes were so light and lovely and were a real pleasure to eat. They tasted very different to the eggy bread I am used to; they were sweeter somehow (maybe because they were fried in butter) and the outside was crunchier. This is probably because they were smaller and therefore could “crunch up” more successfully. See; there are more reasons than purely aesthetical ones for using the kitsch cookie cutters!
The gypsy toast was also absolutely delightful with the bacon and maple syrup. The maple syrup, especially, had lovely deep and smoky deep and rich notes which really complimented the light and delicate texture and taste of the pieces of gypsy toast. The bacon was really lovely, but if I’m honest I wouldn’t have minded doing without it. I had to make *something* first, and this happened to be the bacon, so it was a bit cold by the time I came to eat this. Not the bacons fault at all, but I didn’t think it worked in the same way as the maple syrup.
All in all, this was a wonderful breakfast and it has absolutely transformed the whole concept of gypsy toast for me. I loved the idea of using the children’s biscuit cutters and I loved the idea of pouring over maple syrup. In fact, I can confidently say that these changes completed transformed gypsy toast from a savoury aside to a wonderful breakfast which felt like a feast. I certainly prefer gypsy toast done this way, and of course, once again, I have Nigella to thank for it.


(Bread shapes dipped in egg-wash)



(Shapes frying in butter)

Other person’s perspective: Chris said that he liked this loads and loves the taste of the gypsy toast and that it is definitely sweeter to the gypsy toast that we are used to. He, too, said that he prefers Nigella’s method. He also said that the maple syrup and bacon went together really well and complimented the gypsy toast nicely.



(Nicely browned gypsy toast)

Future changes: Chris came up with a gorgeous way of serving this; the gyps toast on the bottom, a few rashers of fried bacon atop, with maple syrup poured all over! I can only say YUM!

Rating: 5/5.

Bread section: This was a great section and I have really enjoyed cooking from it. If I could only eat one recipe from this section, though, it would be the basic white loaf, which is representative of everything I love about Nigella and Chris said that he prefers the recipe for gypsy toast.