Recipe: Chocolate Queen Kirsten Tibballs’s Oozy Chocolate Sourdough Toastie

Pastry chef and chocolatier Kirsten Tibballs knows chocolate. She’s the founder of Savour Chocolate and Patisserie School, a guest judge on Masterchef and recently showed off her chocolate prowess as a contestant on Dessert Masters. To top it all off, the “chocolate queen” has just released her aptly titled third cookbook: Chocolate All Day, a cornucopia of chocolate-based treats ranging from choc-chip cookie sandwiches with orange ganache to multiple chocolate cakes, babka and more. In the recipe below she even delivers chocolate in toastie form.

“This is no ordinary toastie – more like a sinful chocolate snack,” she writes. “It’s an amped-up version of French toast, layered with slivers of banana and dotted with melting chocolate chips, and is best devoured hot and fresh. The molten, magnificent mess that’s created between two sweetened slices of bread is unbelievable. This is bound to be bookmarked as a favourite.

“I love replacing the banana with fresh or sautéed pineapple.”

For the best results, don’t use bread with large air pockets and have all the elements ready to go before you start frying the bread.

Kirsten Tibballs’s chocolate sourdough toastie
Serves 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
75ml full-cream milk
120ml sweetened condensed milk
100g whole eggs
Pinch of sea salt
Pinch of ground cinnamon
2 tsp unsalted butter
1 tsp grapeseed oil
8 slices day-old sourdough bread, crusts removed
2 bananas, thinly sliced lengthways
80g good-quality milk chocolate chips

Method
Put the milk, condensed milk, eggs, salt and cinnamon in a bowl and whisk to combine. Transfer the mixture to a shallow dish.

Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan over medium heat.

Dip each slice of bread in the condensed milk mixture, then place in the frying pan and cook both sides until golden brown.

Remove from the heat.

Arrange the banana in an even layer over four of the bread slices, sprinkle with chocolate chips, then sandwich together with the remaining bread.

The toasties are best made fresh and served immediately.

Images and text from Chocolate All Day by Kirsten Tibballs, photography by Armelle Habib. Murdoch Books RRP $49.99.