Cookbook:French Toast

French Toast
Category	Breakfast recipes
Servings	1, 2 slices
Time	~10 minutes
Difficulty

Cookbook | Ingredients | Recipes | Vegetarian | Breakfast

French toast is a common breakfast or dessert item made by frying a piece of bread soaked in an egg batter. French toast was developed as a way to use day-old stale bread. "Toast" is a misnomer: the literal translation of pain perdu is lost bread. When the bread is "lost", it can still be consumed in this recipe. When lacking stale bread, toasting your bread lightly will help it absorb more of the egg and milk batter.

French toast is usually served with toppings similar to those used for pancakes, waffles, and toast. Suggested toppings are:

• real maple syrup, table syrup
• jam, jelly, fruit syrup
• whipped cream
• powdered sugar
• nuts
• honey (as served in China)
• bacon
• raspberries and/or strawberries and/or blueberries and/or bananas

It can also be served as part of a fried breakfast with savory foods like sausages (or vegetarian equivalent), tomato (or ketchup), baked beans, fried mushrooms etc.

This recipe is easily scalable. The simplest thing to do is to memorize the recipe for two slices (1 serving), and then multiply to make more. You can coat slightly more than one serving with the wet parts of the recipe (2 1/4 - 2 1/2 normal-sized slices).

Ingredients

To make two slices of French toast use

• 1 egg
• approximately 1/4 cup (60ml) milk (more for softer, less egg-like French toast; less for firmer, more egg-like toast)
• 2 slices bread, preferably 1 in. slices of French bread
• butter (best), margarine, or cooking oil

Optional:

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or similar
• 1/4 - 1 teaspoon nutmeg, cinnamon or other powdered spices suitable for sweet foods
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Bread

The following types of bread have been carefully chosen for making a perfect french toast. Hard crust breads are recommended. Softer breads will create a soggy toast. Toast your bread before dipping it into the mix to create a solid base.

• 1. Sourdough
• 2. Challah
• 3. Schiacciata
• 4. Portuguese sweet bread ("Massa Suvada"). This bread will take your french toast to new heights.
• 5. Whole-wheat raisin bread or schiacciata.
• 6. King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread
• 7. Panettone (bread with raisin, but may be too sweet for some)
• 8. Brioche (weaved bread)
• 9. Chinese bakery loaves of bread. Ask to get it cut thick or uncut.

Procedure

1. In a bowl, mix eggs and milk, and optional ingredients.
2. Heat up a frying pan, skillet or griddle to medium-low heat.
3. Grease the pan with butter, margarine, or cooking spray.
4. Soak a slice of bread in the egg-milk mixture and place on pan; repeat until pan is full or desired amount is placed.
5. Brown both sides bread.
6. Serve on plates, usually two slices per person, with toppings as desired.

Tips

The goal is to get both sides of the French toast nicely browned, while making sure the center is cooked. Using excessive heat could scorch the outside of the toast while leaving the inside undercooked.

Also, if you are not producing many multiples of the recipe, it is easier to evenly soak each slice of bread in the egg and milk mixture if you make it in small batches, with one egg and 1/4 cup of milk and two slices at a time in one bowl. Then, soak the two slices until almost all of the mixture has been absorbed. If the bowl is small, place the two slices on top of each other, and keep switching and flipping them, so that all four sides will absorb the mixture.

The cooking process is too short to use most raw spices, but some fresh herbs might be very tasty.

If using sandwich bread, a plastic sandwich container may be used for the egg-milk mixture. This allows maximum use of the mixture, as the container is a good size and shape.

Video

• French toast (4 slices), YouTube
• How to make French toast, YouTube

References

• How to make toast Recommended bread types.