Top | Breakfast

French Toast

(recipe, Caroline Cummins)


primary-image, l

Introduction

Serve this eggy classic for breakfast or, if you like, for dessert.

Ingredients

  1. 4 eggs
  2. 1 cup milk, half-and-half, or buttermilk (see Note)
  3. 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  4. 1 tsp. honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, sugar, or other sweetener (see Note)
  5. ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
  6. ¼ tsp. grated nutmeg
  7. ⅛ tsp. salt
  8. Grated zest of 1 orange or lemon (optional)
  9. 8 to 10 slices sandwich bread (½-inch thick) or 6 to 8 slices thicker bread (¾-inch to 1-inch thick)
  10. Butter or oil for cooking and serving
  11. Maple syrup, jam, and/or confectioners' sugar for serving

Steps

  1. In a large baking dish, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, sweetener, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and zest. Place two or three slices of bread in the bowl and turn them until evenly coated with batter. Let sit for a few minutes. (Thicker bread will need a longer soaking time.)
  2. Preheat a griddle or large skillet to medium. When hot, drop in a bit of butter or oil and swirl or spread to coat the surface of the griddle or skillet. (If using a nonstick griddle or skillet, skip the butter/oil entirely.)
  3. Place the soaked bread slices on the preheated griddle and cook for a few minutes on each side. While the first batch is cooking, soak another two or three slices of bread in the batter. Remove cooked slices to an ovenproof platter and keep warm in a 200-degree oven until all the slices are cooked.
  4. Serve warm, with butter, maple syrup, jam, and confectioners' sugar.

Note

If using all buttermilk, you may want to thin it a bit with regular milk. If using freshly grated orange zest, juice the orange and use some of the juice to sweeten the batter instead of the suggested sweeteners. You can use stale bread, but it will need to soak longer in the batter to soften up. If you can score some challah bread on Friday night, it makes awesome French toast on Saturday morning. If you're using an entire loaf of challah, add 1/2 cup milk to the batter. It may sound weird, but peanut butter and maple syrup go well together on French toast.