World Famous French Toast.
mod
So a little while ago, we had a get together with some friends for an Iron Chef showdown, which we've been doing for the past few years now. The theme was "Booze in food" and my wife made the most awesome french toast ever. We made it again this morning, and I took some photos, and will write up a little how-to here.
First off, the recipe and methods are based off of Alton Brown's french toast recipe. There is some good science in there and we're convinced that his methods make the absolutely best french toast. Its worth checking out or just making straight from his: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/french-toast-recipe/index.html
http://www.foodnetwork.com/alton-s-french-toast/video/index.html
The first thing you want to do is make a custard(sorry I didn't take photos of this), you make this the night before. Its important to beat it very well so you don't have any snotty eggy stuff left in it, I'm sure anyone who has ever made french toast half awake in the morning knows what I'm talking about. So what goes in it:
This portion is actually based on a different recipe as well, from a cookbook we have here(double this if you plan on serving more than 4 people)
3 Eggs
1 Cup Milk, We have used Half&Half, but if you can get quality 2% non-homogenized milk with cream on top, that works well too.
1/2 teaspoon(HEAPING) Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
2 teaspoons Kahlua
2 teaspoons Vanilla
Beat the eggs thoroughly, making sure no nasty runny stuff is left, and then combine the rest of the ingredients. Store in Tupperware in the fridge over night. Make sure to pick a container that you can easily fit 2 slices of bread in for dipping, so you don't have to switch to something else.
Now, choice of bread is key, you want a bread that can soak up a lot of liquid, and something that doesn't have too sour of a taste. We used Challah or Hallah, which is a Jewish egg based bread. This is the #1 choice, as it pretty much tastes like french toast uncooked. We found this at the local organic Co-Op, the major grocery store doesn't carry it.
Cut the bread in 1/2-1 inch slices, I made them about 1 inch the first time, which you would think is way too big, but it was excellent. Because of the way we cook it, it works out fine. Leave the slices sitting on your oven rack overnight, crack the oven slightly to get some airflow. We want the bread to be stale so it absorbs a good amount of moisture. In France this is called "forgotten bread" because it is made from the stale left over bread.
Now, we make a "Compote" or sauce that is basically a pie filling.
With a medium saucepan on medium heat, we add:
1 bag frozen raspberries
1 bag frozen blueberries
1/2 bag frozen strawberries
1/2 cup juice, cranberry or orange, whatever you have in your fridge
A tablespoon of Cinnamon(more or less to taste)
A few tablespoons of brown sugar, more if you like a sweeter sauce, to taste
A squirt of lemon juice for acidity
A couple tablespoons of corn starch to thicken, add as needed, the pectin in the fruit will gradually thicken as well, so do not go nuts with the corn starch.
A splash of triple sec, or another orange flavored Booze, to taste yet again.
This will make a pretty tart sauce, if you like sweeter sauces, change the recipe a little to your liking.
Heat, stirring often until the raspberries have turned entirely to mush, and the sauce has thickened. It does not need to come to a boil or anything. Too much heat will alter the flavor, making the sauce extra sweet, so be careful.
The sauce can be made the night before or the morning of, if made the night before simply store in the fridge in tupperware, and then heat back up on the stove over medium heat as soon as you start dipping.
The sauce should look something like this:
Next day:
If your bread is still fresh and not very stale, open the oven for an hour or two all the way and let it sit before cooking(or just go ahead and cook, its not a huge deal).
Now we dip, what we will want for this is:
A baking pan
A cookie drying mesh thing
Put the mesh thing in the baking pan, to give the bread a nice place to sit and drain(this is covered well in Alton's video, as are most steps of the cooking process).
Now, its important that we dip each side for a full 30 seconds. I use the stopwatch on my phone for this, dip, wait 30 seconds, flip, wait 30 seconds, remove from custard and let drain above custard container, and then set on our draining station. Doing this a full 30 seconds will make sure that the custard is fully soaked into the bread, not like the eggy-on-the-surface french toast i'm sure most of you have had.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the process, but this is the end result of the dipping:
Now, the toast should sit for a minute or two. As soon as we've got all of the slices on the draining rack, we will fire up our griddle and start frying. If you do not have a griddle, use a frying pan(you will have to experiment with the temp, I would suggest medium heat). For each batch you fry, you need to add 1 tablespoon of butter(margarine), for the griddle I put 1 tablespoon on either end.
A griddle is like $30 or something, so I would recommend it, also great for cooking bacon.
Before we start, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Heat the griddle to about 275, I usually turn the heat up too much and burn the first batch a little, I find its better to cook slower at a lower temp. Melt the butter.
Then add the french toast, as much as you can fit, but keep in mind you need room to flip them, overcrowding will be a pain.
Wait about 2-5 minutes, the first batch usually cooks a little slower as the temp is warming up. Check the bottom for doneness and then flip, and cook the other side for 2-5 minutes.
A little burnt, the next batch was better
Now that the toast is nice and crispy, we bake it on the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. This ensures that the egg is cooked all the way through, and has a nice firm texture. This is the single biggest thing that sets this recipe apart from regular old french toast IMO, baking is key!
Its best to put the french toast directly into the oven after each batch is done, but you can wait and do it all at once, the texture will be better if its baked as soon as its done frying.
After baking:
Final Result:
For an extra kick, make up some Kahlua whipped cream:
1 small container of heavy whipping cream
1-2 tablespoons Kahlua, to taste
WHIP!!
Stay tuned for our next episode: WORLD FAMOUS BEEF JERKY
First off, the recipe and methods are based off of Alton Brown's french toast recipe. There is some good science in there and we're convinced that his methods make the absolutely best french toast. Its worth checking out or just making straight from his: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/french-toast-recipe/index.html
http://www.foodnetwork.com/alton-s-french-toast/video/index.html
The first thing you want to do is make a custard(sorry I didn't take photos of this), you make this the night before. Its important to beat it very well so you don't have any snotty eggy stuff left in it, I'm sure anyone who has ever made french toast half awake in the morning knows what I'm talking about. So what goes in it:
This portion is actually based on a different recipe as well, from a cookbook we have here(double this if you plan on serving more than 4 people)
3 Eggs
1 Cup Milk, We have used Half&Half, but if you can get quality 2% non-homogenized milk with cream on top, that works well too.
1/2 teaspoon(HEAPING) Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
2 teaspoons Kahlua
2 teaspoons Vanilla
Beat the eggs thoroughly, making sure no nasty runny stuff is left, and then combine the rest of the ingredients. Store in Tupperware in the fridge over night. Make sure to pick a container that you can easily fit 2 slices of bread in for dipping, so you don't have to switch to something else.
Now, choice of bread is key, you want a bread that can soak up a lot of liquid, and something that doesn't have too sour of a taste. We used Challah or Hallah, which is a Jewish egg based bread. This is the #1 choice, as it pretty much tastes like french toast uncooked. We found this at the local organic Co-Op, the major grocery store doesn't carry it.
Cut the bread in 1/2-1 inch slices, I made them about 1 inch the first time, which you would think is way too big, but it was excellent. Because of the way we cook it, it works out fine. Leave the slices sitting on your oven rack overnight, crack the oven slightly to get some airflow. We want the bread to be stale so it absorbs a good amount of moisture. In France this is called "forgotten bread" because it is made from the stale left over bread.
Now, we make a "Compote" or sauce that is basically a pie filling.
With a medium saucepan on medium heat, we add:
1 bag frozen raspberries
1 bag frozen blueberries
1/2 bag frozen strawberries
1/2 cup juice, cranberry or orange, whatever you have in your fridge
A tablespoon of Cinnamon(more or less to taste)
A few tablespoons of brown sugar, more if you like a sweeter sauce, to taste
A squirt of lemon juice for acidity
A couple tablespoons of corn starch to thicken, add as needed, the pectin in the fruit will gradually thicken as well, so do not go nuts with the corn starch.
A splash of triple sec, or another orange flavored Booze, to taste yet again.
This will make a pretty tart sauce, if you like sweeter sauces, change the recipe a little to your liking.
Heat, stirring often until the raspberries have turned entirely to mush, and the sauce has thickened. It does not need to come to a boil or anything. Too much heat will alter the flavor, making the sauce extra sweet, so be careful.
The sauce can be made the night before or the morning of, if made the night before simply store in the fridge in tupperware, and then heat back up on the stove over medium heat as soon as you start dipping.
The sauce should look something like this:
Next day:
If your bread is still fresh and not very stale, open the oven for an hour or two all the way and let it sit before cooking(or just go ahead and cook, its not a huge deal).
Now we dip, what we will want for this is:
A baking pan
A cookie drying mesh thing
Put the mesh thing in the baking pan, to give the bread a nice place to sit and drain(this is covered well in Alton's video, as are most steps of the cooking process).
Now, its important that we dip each side for a full 30 seconds. I use the stopwatch on my phone for this, dip, wait 30 seconds, flip, wait 30 seconds, remove from custard and let drain above custard container, and then set on our draining station. Doing this a full 30 seconds will make sure that the custard is fully soaked into the bread, not like the eggy-on-the-surface french toast i'm sure most of you have had.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the process, but this is the end result of the dipping:
Now, the toast should sit for a minute or two. As soon as we've got all of the slices on the draining rack, we will fire up our griddle and start frying. If you do not have a griddle, use a frying pan(you will have to experiment with the temp, I would suggest medium heat). For each batch you fry, you need to add 1 tablespoon of butter(margarine), for the griddle I put 1 tablespoon on either end.
A griddle is like $30 or something, so I would recommend it, also great for cooking bacon.
Before we start, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Heat the griddle to about 275, I usually turn the heat up too much and burn the first batch a little, I find its better to cook slower at a lower temp. Melt the butter.
Then add the french toast, as much as you can fit, but keep in mind you need room to flip them, overcrowding will be a pain.
Wait about 2-5 minutes, the first batch usually cooks a little slower as the temp is warming up. Check the bottom for doneness and then flip, and cook the other side for 2-5 minutes.
A little burnt, the next batch was better
Now that the toast is nice and crispy, we bake it on the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. This ensures that the egg is cooked all the way through, and has a nice firm texture. This is the single biggest thing that sets this recipe apart from regular old french toast IMO, baking is key!
Its best to put the french toast directly into the oven after each batch is done, but you can wait and do it all at once, the texture will be better if its baked as soon as its done frying.
After baking:
Final Result:
For an extra kick, make up some Kahlua whipped cream:
1 small container of heavy whipping cream
1-2 tablespoons Kahlua, to taste
WHIP!!
Stay tuned for our next episode: WORLD FAMOUS BEEF JERKY
Replies
Do you still taste the egg? I can tolerate most of the smell and taste, but if it's pungent I have a hard time eating it (I will probably finish it cause I'm a garbage can).
Is there a way to make it without eggs, or a sub??
You could try vegan "eggs" alternatively, I suppose, but it would probably suck!
Or simply use less eggs and more milk.
Yeah your recipe looks pretty awesome EQ!
We sometimes make french toast with my girlfriend (correct translation is actually lost bread by the way, but even in france it has many different names), but usually it's in the original tradition of the recipe : old hard bread, not much left in the fridge, what are we gonna eat this morning?
It's still good too, just with extra sugar on it, and you're sure not to be hungry afterwards for a few hours, heh.
XenoKratios, you don't feel the egg so much if you make it right, no more than in some egg-based cakes.
Thanks EarthQuake, will try this and post pictures
I've always had it as part of a savoury meal, with bacon, eggs, etc.
French toast with bacon, sausage, etc is common here as well. There isn't really much of anything that I like better than a good breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon and hashbrowns! I dont actually eat this often, as its super fatty, dunno if you guys really eat like this on a regular basis? This generally follows a night of heavy drinking =P
I dont really care for overly sweet french toast, the sauce we make is actually very tart and not sweet like the typical maple syrup + powdered sugar preparation that is common in the US.
Really sorry for the OT here, but quick question here... I tried to post a thread 2 days ago and it still hasn't shown up. If your thread gets rejected do the moderators tell you that it has? Also tried posting yesterday a thread asking this question but that never showed up either lol.
Continue on posting things that will make me fat.
Seems a little over the top for french toast - but even for a lazy git like me there's some good tips in there! Nice!
Egg in a Basket I think. At least that's one of the various names for it. I've never seen it done with french toast though, just with bread and butter.
Its called Egg in the window (Geordieland variant). Haven't had that in years.
Its not as complicated as it looks, to sum it all up:
Make the batter the night before, so it sets up
Use good bread, with nice large slices, leave it out so its stale
Soak it properly(not just quick dip)
Fry like normal
Bake so the inside is cooked properly
Use a good sauce
I'd suggest watching Alton's video in the second link, quickly explains everything.
But this looks good, just swap the sauce with maple syrup, and it's perfect food.
We normally...
Toss in some pancake batter to thicken it up.
Also a shot of karo syrup can be a nice touch.
Also, griddle some bacon, add some butter then cook the toast.
If you're suicidal, get some round cookie cutters, drop it on the griddle, crack an egg into it. When it's cooked make a sandwich with the toast, bacon and some cheese...
Texas Toast makes a good stand in bread, not the garlic bread junk but the egg bread.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/the-chewy-recipe/index.html
Yes! That's the cookie recipe I usually make and it is awful nice.
Your bread reminds me of what my family loves most... bread from jimmy johns. I don't know how familiar most of you would be with Jimmy Johns, but it's a sub sandwich chain. They sell loafs of their bread for cheap (I believe 50 cents for day old). I usually cut it up like you had it in the images. I prefer it over regular bread now.
Cut on an angle to maximize surface area!
French toast for the win! :thumbup:
Agreed