Ella Risbridger, author of The Kitchen Book, has shared a collection of fancy toast recipes that transform a simple slice of bread into a sublime meal. Her formula is simple: soft, sharp, frill. Soft refers to creamy or spreadable bases like avocado or cream cheese. Sharp cuts through the richness with pickled jalapeño, lemon zest, or hot sauce. Frill adds a decorative touch, such as microgreens, radish slivers, or cucumber roses.
Fancy London
The Fancy London toast features soft avocado, sharp lemon zest, and a frill of microgreens. This combination offers a fresh, zesty bite with a creamy texture.
Fancy New York
For a New York-inspired version, Risbridger recommends soft full-fat cream cheese, sharp pickled jalapeño and dill, and a frill of smoked salmon rolled into roses with pea shoots curled between. This toast is rich and tangy.
Fancy Tokyo
The Fancy Tokyo toast uses a soft single-egg omelette, with white and yolk not quite beaten together for a ripple effect, rolled to toast-size. It is topped with thin-sliced radish and a drizzle of sriracha for sharpness, and finished with sesame seeds and nasturtiums if available.
Fancy Breakfast
For a breakfast twist, Risbridger suggests good peanut butter as the soft base, sweet pickled jalapeño relish for sharpness, and a frill of chopped roasted salted peanuts. This toast balances sweet, spicy, and salty flavours.
Fancy Small Plate
This version features a soft base of 400g white beans blitzed with 3 tbsp olive oil until smooth. The sharp element is a salsa verde made from a bunch of parsley, a single green chilli, 1 tsp dijon mustard, a splash of white vinegar, and a splash of olive oil, blitzed until smooth and drizzled. The frill consists of four best-quality anchovies.
Fancy Dessert
For dessert, Risbridger recommends soft fresh almond butter: roast almonds for 20 minutes at 160C, then blitz with a little sea salt and a pinch of cardamom. Top with a sliced perfect peach for sharpness, and finish with honey and good granola as frill.
Surprising and Fancy Dessert
Another dessert option uses soft goat's cheese as the base, with a sliced perfect nectarine and a sliced perfect tomato alternating for sharpness. The frill is black pepper, honey, and sea salt.
These recipes are edited extracts from The Kitchen Book by Ella Risbridger, published by 4th Estate at £26. To order a copy for £23.40, visit guardianbookshop.com.
