French Toast

Stale bread soaked right through rather than dipped, fried in butter and oil together so the butter cannot burn.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (double cream), dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

• 8 thick slices stale brioche or white bread, 2 cm
• 4 eggs
• 250 ml whole milk
• 100 ml double cream
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a good grating of nutmeg
• a pinch of salt
• 40 g butter
• 2 tablespoons oil
• caster sugar and cinnamon, to finish

Method

1. THE BREAD IS STALE AND IS SOAKED RIGHT THROUGH, NOT DIPPED. Two or three days old, thick cut, and left in the custard until it is heavy and saturated to the middle -- a minute a side at least, longer for brioche. Fresh bread cannot do this: it is already full of water, so the custard sits on the surface and what you fry is toast with egg on it. Stale bread is dry enough to drink.
2. BUT IT MUST NOT FALL APART, so it is lifted with a slice or a wide spatula rather than fingers, and it goes straight into the pan. The window between properly soaked and structurally hopeless is about thirty seconds for brioche.
3. BUTTER AND OIL TOGETHER, which is the only way to get butter flavour without burnt butter. Butter alone browns and then blackens before the second batch; the oil raises the temperature it can stand. Wipe the pan and use fresh between batches anyway, because the sugar in the custard catches.
4. AND THE HEAT IS MEDIUM, NOT HIGH. The custard inside has to set, and that takes longer than browning the outside. Too hot and you get a dark crust round a raw eggy middle.
5. Eggs, milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and salt whisked together thoroughly and poured into a wide shallow dish.
6. PASSED THROUGH A SIEVE, which catches the stringy bits of white that would otherwise set as threads on the surface.
7. Two slices laid in, left 1 minute, turned, and left 1 minute more. Pressed gently -- it should feel heavy and give like a sponge.
8. Butter and oil heated together in a wide pan over a medium heat until the butter stops foaming.
9. The slices lifted in with a spatula, not crowded.
10. Fried 3 minutes until deep gold, turned once, and 2 to 3 minutes more. The edges should look set rather than wet.
11. Lifted onto a rack, not kitchen paper, which steams the underside soft. Kept in a low oven.
12. The pan wiped out and fresh butter and oil used for each batch.
13. Dusted with sugar and cinnamon and served at once, with whatever is sharp -- berries, or a spoonful of crème fraîche.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes