Easy French Toast

There are pancake people, there are waffle people, and then there are French toast people. I spent most of my life making pancakes and enjoying waffles, but French toast never seemed that special. Who wants a piece of fried sandwich bread when you can have a crispy waffle right out of the waffle maker?

When I first posted this easy French toast recipe in 2009, I was still mostly ambivalent about French toast. I made it with plain white sandwich bread and it tasted totally fine. But then one day, I made French toast with challah bread and cue the horn section: this was a revelation. In fact, I love challah French toast so much, it’s surpassed pancakes and waffles as my favorite Sunday breakfast to make. And it’s much easier.

What makes challah (or brioche) so good for French toast? It’s an enriched dough which means it has eggs and oil already in it, so when you soak it in a custard, it gets that much richer. More importantly, the sugar in the dough allows it to caramelize better than ordinary sandwich bread.

Which is not to say that ordinary sandwich bread doesn’t have its place in the French toast hierarchy. In fact, in terms of a balanced breakfast, challah French toast can be something of a gut bomb. Sandwich bread French toast is something you could eat every day (and this batter still works for it). Plus: sandwich bread allows for more variations — raisin bread French toast, Pumpernickel bread French toast, and so on.

This batter, which comes from The Joy of Cooking, is as simple as whisking together 2/3rd a cup milk (whole milk preferably, though I usually use 2%), four eggs, two tablespoons of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of vanilla. What’s great about it is that you can take this formula in multiple directions. Swap out the vanilla for rum and make this a tropical French toast (serve with bananas and pineapple). Or grate some orange zest into the batter and add Cointreau and serve with supremed oranges. Let your creativity run wild.

The trickiest part of making French toast is knowing how long to soak the bread. If you don’t soak it enough, you’ll wind up with just toast that doesn’t have anything French about it. Oversoak, and you might wind up with challah bread milk soup.

I like to start soaking when I put the cold butter in the cold skillet. I turn up the heat to medium high and as it melts, I flip the challah over and move it all around so it gets as much in there in that short time as possible. Then, once the foam has subsided, I lift up the challah, drip off the extra batter, and add it to the skillet.

There are lots of opinions about which vessel is best for frying French toast. Some would tell you a cast iron pan because it gets hot and stays hot. I’m fully in support of that, though I have to confess I much prefer using my non-stick skillet. The French toast moves more easily around in it and it’s easier to flip when the time comes.

As for the fat, some people swear by frying French toast in vegetable oil. (I distinctly remember it’s the secret to Molly Wizenberg’s recipe.) The idea there is that oil has a higher smoking point and therefore can get hotter than butter and make your French toast crispier. But I’m just a butter guy. I love the way the butter melts, sizzles, foams, and subsides before you add the gooey bread. And has there ever been a love affair as moving in the history of gastronomy as bread and butter? They just belong together.

Whether you use oil or butter, there’s something deeply gratifying about flipping the French toast over and seeing such a deep caramelized color. So many components are working together to make that happen: the bread, the oil and sugar in the bread, the sugar in the batter, and the fat in the pan. Humankind has made many great achievements during its existence — curing polio, walking on the moon — but figuring out French toast may be chief among them.

Even though this is an easy recipe, there’s no reason not to break out the powdered sugar to sprinkle on top. It takes all of five seconds and transforms this French toast from an office party to a fully-catered Bar Mitzvah. And if you have blueberries or other fruit, add them here too. It’ll make you feel virtuous in the face of all that butter, oil, sugar, and bread.

The good news: If you make too much, you can easily freeze whatever’s left over on a cookie sheet until solid, place in a freezer bag, and then reheat in the oven at 350 when you’re ready for more. Straight from the freezer into the toaster works too — a reader named Esther suggested that in the comments back in 2009 and she was right.

But my hunch is that you’ll gobble this all up in one go.

Easy French Toast

The simplest batter from The Joy of Cooking makes for the easiest French toast.

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 5 minutes mins

Servings: 2 people

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Calories: 500

Ingredients Method Video

Ingredients

  

• 2/3 cup whole milk or half-and-half
• 4 large eggs
• 2 Tablespoons sugar or maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or rum (if you're feeling sassy)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 thick slices challah bread, sourdough bread, pullman bread, or whatever bread you have on hand
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Powdered sugar (optional)
• Good maple syrup

Method

 

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt until homogenous.
2. Lower the challah into the bowl to allow to soak while you melt the butter in a large skillet on medium-high heat.
3. Remove the challah, drip off any excess batter, and add to the skillet. There should be room for all four pieces.
4. Cook for about a minute or two and start to check the bottom to see if it's turning golden brown. When it's a deep bronze color, flip over and cook another minute on the other side.
5. Remove to two plates, dust with powdered sugar (if you have it), and serve with maple syrup.

Video