Ingredients
- 6 thick slice of French bread
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- butter for frying
- maple syrup
Instructions
Step 1
Most people dip thin pieces of bread in egg, they cook it, they think that's French toast - it's not. I'm going to show you the secret restaurant method for fantastic French toast. Let me show you how we do this. Now, very common, you bought a big loaf of country bread here, half of it's left over - that's when you want to make this recipe. So what I'm going to do is cut some nice, thick slices - definitely at least an inch thick. That's going to let it soak up the custard we're going to make and then it's also going to give it a great crispy texture on the outside when we go to bake it. So an inch thick is just about right. Ideally this bread is day-old, which it probably is because you're doing this with leftovers. But if it's not day-old, after you cut it, just let it sit out and dry out for a couple hours. That will help it soak up the custard. Super-fresh, moist bread is not the best choice for French toast.
Step 2
So I'm going to do three eggs. If you figure on one egg per every two thick slices of bread, that's going to be a great ratio. I'm also going to add a splash of milk, so I'm going to put in one third cup of milk. I'm going to give it a little splash of vanilla, about a teaspoon. A little pinch of allspice, maybe a quarter of a teaspoon, and about a half a teaspoon of cinnamon. And then even though this is kind of a sweet dish, we got to have a little bit of savory in there - we're going to put a pinch of salt. Just a pinch, and that's actually going to help bring out the flavors.
Step 3
Okay, so we're going to whisk this together and our custard is ready - so easy. Alright, we're going to take our bread, and we're going to make sure it is very well-soaked. So put them in one at a time, and kind of pile them up as you do it. We're going to refrigerate this - we want to come back in maybe ten minutes and give them one more toss. Soaking period would be maybe 30 minutes to an hour. So let's let this soak and then we'll get to the good stuff.
Step 4
Once the bread is soaked and you're ready to brown it, simply take a nice large skillet and we're going to melt in a couple tablespoons of whole butter. As soon as it foams up, it's pretty much ready to go. So we're going to pull out our pieces of bread - medium heat is perfect, even if you want to go medium-low, that's fine. All we're doing here is just getting a little bit of color on the outside - just giving it a little bit of a head start. Look at that. So once they get a little bit of brown on there, maybe two minutes a side, go ahead and flip those over.
Step 5
After they've been browned, go ahead and transfer them to your baking sheet. And this is going to go in a fairly hot oven - this is going to go in a 400 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes, until the inside is cooked, and the outside gets even more crusty and delicious. I'm going to put these in, and I'm going to go stare at my maple syrup.
Step 6
Alright - it's been about 14-15 minutes and these are looking perfect and amazing. Outside crispy, the inside moist and creamy. To give it that little restaurant finish, just a little sprinkle of powdered sugar. And now, one of the great, great sights in all of food, the slowly dripping maple syrup over freshly made, restaurant-style, custard on the inside, crispy, buttery fried outside, French toast.
