The best French Toast ever

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whole milk

Senior Cook
Joined
Apr 3, 2008
Messages
214
Location
yokohama, japan
All French Toast is bread pudding, so why not start with bread pudding? That's how I make my French Toast: Bake your bread pudding in a bread tin then when cool slice and fry in butter or ghee. (I made a video of it if you'd like to see my process.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu3U0Avw7kM


Here's my recipe. I'd love to hear what you think -- and if you like French Toast as much as I do. :)


The proportions, so you can adjust the recipe, are 1 egg to 1 cup liquid to 1 cup dried/stale bread.



For my loaf tin I use
- 5 large eggs
- 5 cups milk (you can substitute cream for a richer pudding)
- 1/4 cup brandy (any flavored liquid like, liquors work well to personalize the flavor)
- 1/2 cup sugar (you can add up to 1.5 cups depending on how sweet you like it, because I pour syrup over it, I use less).
- The zests from 2 - 3 oranges (you can use lemons as well)
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- You can also mix in candied or dried fruits and/or nuts to suit your taste.
- 5 cups stale/dried bread

1. Zest oranges and add to sugar, then combine with 2 cups of milk and bring to the simmer. Turn off the heat and let sit until cool.

2. In a bowl whisk together five eggs, the salt, and any additional sugar you would like to use. Whisk in the orange flavored milk, the remaining 3 cups of milk, and all the flavorings. Strain to remove any solids.

3. In a bread tin lay out your dried bread (and fruits or nuts, if using) and then pour the liquid mixture over it. Let it sit overnight to fully rehydrate the bread.

4. Bake in a slow oven, 160C/320F for one hour. Let cool and refrigerate. Serve as is or with a sweet sauce, -- at this point you've made Bread Pudding, to make French toast, slice the pudding and fry in hot oil or ghee for a few minutes on either side to develop a crust. The outside is crispy and the inside warm and creamy).
 
First, your recipe looks great. I do have to say though that french toast can be so much more than bread pudding. French toast, made with bread slices, either thick, or thin, can be stuffed with everything from processed cheese loaf to corned beef. It can battered and deep fried to make a Monty Kristo, or a fruit stuffed french toast. You can flavor it with nutmeg to make it taste like a cake doughnut, or with S&P if you want something more savory. And of course, you can top it with nut butters, jams, jellies, lemon/lime curds, or maple, or fruit syrups
French toast is just too versatile to pigeonhole into one recipe. That's my take on it anyway.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
I like the Cooks Illustrated french toast recipe because it adds a little flour to the egg/milk/butter/sugar mixture. This makes a big difference in the taste/texture of the french toast. The other tip is to use Challah bread.
 
Hi, whole milk. You might call that recipe bread pudding, but it's what I've been making as overnight French toast for years. I serve it hot out of the oven after baking it instead of cooling down and then slicing and frying.

I'm also confused with your egg-to-milk ratio, not to mention the additional liquid from the brandy. Nearly every overnight French bread recipe I've read uses one (or almost one) egg per one ounce of liquid - or eight eggs for one cup of milk. Rather than baking mine in a loaf tin, I use an 8x8x2 baking dish. About 2/3 loaf of bread, six eggs and a cup of whole milk fills the baking dish.

I do like the addition of brandy, though, and the orange zest. I might tweak my recipe to incorporate those into my next pan of overnight French toast.
 
I like the Cooks Illustrated french toast recipe because it adds a little flour to the egg/milk/butter/sugar mixture. This makes a big difference in the taste/texture of the french toast. The other tip is to use Challah bread.

Oh, that sounds interesting. When I make custard, I often, not always, add a bit of starch to protect it. Like, how much flour are you talking?
 
Hi, whole milk. You might call that recipe bread pudding, but it's what I've been making as overnight French toast for years. I serve it hot out of the oven after baking it instead of cooling down and then slicing and frying.

I'm also confused with your egg-to-milk ratio, not to mention the additional liquid from the brandy. Nearly every overnight French bread recipe I've read uses one (or almost one) egg per one ounce of liquid - or eight eggs for one cup of milk. Rather than baking mine in a loaf tin, I use an 8x8x2 baking dish. About 2/3 loaf of bread, six eggs and a cup of whole milk fills the baking dish.

I do like the addition of brandy, though, and the orange zest. I might tweak my recipe to incorporate those into my next pan of overnight French toast.

First, I've never baked FT before. I'll have to find a recipe and give it a try.

Eight eggs for one cup of milk? I've never heard of such a thing, at least not for a custard. In my minds eye, that plays out more like an omelette than a custard, so in that version of FT, I think the results would be very different. Come to think of it, that proportion of eggs to milk as a sweet item, like FT, reminds me of a section in Escoffier's cookbook on sweet omelettes, which, apparently, used to be a thing.

Brandy (or rum) are great additions. When I make if for my kids, I leave it out and the syrups add that extra flavor that suits them just fine. :)
 
First, I've never baked FT before. I'll have to find a recipe and give it a try.
It's so good and easy. I like that I can assemble the night before, then still serve up a nice breakfast at leisure - and we "leisure" at the Olympic level around here.

...Eight eggs for one cup of milk? I've never heard of such a thing, at least not for a custard. In my minds eye, that plays out more like an omelette than a custard...
No matter what you call it, it's tasty. I looked at many recipes online to find the egg/dairy ratio. Serious Eats suggested 3 eggs per cup of milk, but that was for regular French toast. One site has a 4 eggs-per-cup of milk plus 1/2 cup cream ratio, but that is a casserole that you bake right after assembling. This site has a wait time as short as 30 minutes, but you can refrigerate it overnight as well. It's 6 eggs/one cup milk plus 1/2 cup cream. Both this site and yet another calls for 8 eggs/one cup milk.

Somewhere, on some site, I did see a suggestion that if you found their egg-to-milk too much like scrambled eggs, to substitute two yolks for one egg for part of the liquid measure.

All those recipes appear to be for 9x13 inch pans. We're just two, so I make an 8x8 pan. For our liking, we like it with one cup dairy and six eggs. And in the end, making food that you like to eat is supposed to be the end result, right? :yum:
 
I tried a take on this after seeing your photo. 3 eggs : 2 cup milk and quite a bit more bread so it fit my bread pan. Different flavorings as I did mine the way I do bread pudding.
It does bake in about an hour. I baked right away with only about ten minute soak with the oven preheated. Cooled in the pan and refrigerated overnight.
Slices like a dream. Slightly delicate on the griddle (a little softer than French toast's solid bread pieces) but caramelizes beautifully and tastes just like you would expect. French toast that tastes exactly like bread pudding. Yum.
Thanks for the idea.
Doesn't turn out like baked French toast at all. I like this a lot better.
 
Different flavorings as I did mine the way I do bread pudding.

Doesn't turn out like baked French toast at all. I like this a lot better.

Awesome! I'd like to know how you flavored it. (My motto is that cooking is personalization, so I'm always interested in how people make a dish theirs.)

And I checked your blog out! Not only do we get great recipes but can put a face to name, er, handle. :)

Cheers,
 
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