The thing that originally prompted me to make crème fraîche was actually an excess of oranges. We got a bunch of oranges in our last produce basket, which is great... except neither TF nor I tend to really eat oranges. I'll happy eat grapefruit for breakfast. And he'll go through clementines at a somewhat alarming rate. But we don't really "do" oranges. (The kidlet isn't really keen on citrus in general right now, so we can't count on him to be a fruit sink here either.) This meant that I had to search for things to do with surplus oranges.

The first got sliced up and put into a citrus-avocado salad, which I found tasty after a couple minor tweaks, but TF wasn't too keen on. (I may do a write-up for it at some point but, given that neither of us were crazy about it and we're not likely to revisit the recipe any time soon, it's not exactly a high priority right now.) The next orange recipe I found was much more of a hit though: homemade whole wheat bread slathered generously with maple-cinnamon butter, toasted, and topped with vanilla sugar saturated sliced orange and homemade crème fraîche. That, as it turns out, went over exceedingly well!

Unfortunately I was in such a hurry to sit down and devour my delectable breakfast, that I forgot to snap a picture of the fully assembled dish. So, I will just borrow the photo from yesterday's post to show you the crème fraîche-topped maple-cinnamon toast:

So now just imagine that with three or four thin slices of juicy orange and a drizzle of maple syrup on top and you'll have an idea of the deliciousness that was my breakfast this morning!

Maple-Cinnamon Toast with Citrus & Crème Fraîche

Adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients

• 1 orange, thinly sliced, seeds removed¹
• 2 Tbsp. vanilla sugar²
• 1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temp.
• 1 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• pinch coarse sea salt
• 2 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 4 (1/2"-thick) slices whole wheat bread
• 1 c. crème fraîche
• extra maple syrup to serve (~1/2 c.)

Directions

1. Toss orange slices with vanilla sugar and set aside. (I prepped mine the night before and let them sit in a Ziploc bag in the fridge overnight.)
2. Combine butter, cinnamon, sea salt, and maple syrup. (I just tossed the cold butter in a dish with all the other stuff and let it sit on the counter overnight. By morning it was soft enough to easily mix everything together.)
3. Spread one side of each slice of bread with some of the cinnamon butter.
4. Bake at 450°F for 8 minutes.
5. Place toast butter-side-down on a plate, top with crème fraîche and orange slices, drizzle with maple syrup, and enjoy!

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¹ The recipe does not say to peel the orange and the picture on Epicurious shows unpeeled orange slices. I think that if your slices are thin and even and neat, having an unpeeled orange would work and does produce a striking visual. The peel also gives those thin slices some structural integrity so they don't just disintegrate on you. That said, I chose to remove the very outer part of the peel with a vegetable peeler (mostly so that I could candy it). The remaining pith did lend some structure, but wasn't as substantial or chewy it would have been had I left the whole peel on. I think fully peeling the orange and using a very sharp knife to cut somewhat thicker slices would also work well. It all depends on what you're after.^Back

² The original recipe calls for 2 Tbsp. sugar + seeds from 1/2 of a vanilla bean. Going that route would definitely give a more pronounced vanilla flavour which I think would be quite lovely. I went with the vanilla sugar mainly because I had it easily to hand and because there were enough other flavours going on that I wasn't really expecting the vanilla to take centre stage anyway. If you want to really taste the vanilla though, definitely use the vanilla bean!^Back