Diples: Traditional Greek Fried Pastries with Honey Syrup vs Torrijas (Spanish French Toast)

Both desserts are fried in olive oil and scented with lemon peel, yet they end up in very different places. Diples begin with an egg, orange-juice and olive-oil dough rolled almost paper-thin and deep-fried until crisp, then dipped hot into a cool sugar-and-honey syrup perfumed with lemon peel and finished with walnuts and cinnamon. Torrijas instead soak stale bread in milk warmed with sugar, a cinnamon stick and lemon peel, coat it in beaten egg, pan-fry it golden and roll it in cinnamon sugar. The result is crisp, syrup-glazed ribbons on one side and soft, milk-soaked slices with a sugary coating on the other.