We've all woken up and wandered into the kitchen to make ourselves something special for weekend brunch.
We look in the fridge and spot milk, eggs, and bread — with visions of French toast
dancing in our heads.
"French toast you want?
French toast you got."
But after whipping up what you had planned to be the perfect start to your day, you are
left with a soggy French flop.
Yuck.
Let's be honest.
This is one of those dishes that can be as simple or as exciting as you want it to be,
depending on how you make it.
At its most basic, it's bread soaked in a beaten egg and milk before it is fried.
But at its height, French toast can pay homage to the dish that inspired it - Pain Perdu
- which can still be found in diners in New Orleans.
"I made French toast."
"And there's no shells in it."
Unlike homemade French toast, which is frequently made with thin slices of bread, Pain Perdu
calls for hearty chunks of day-old baguette or thick French bread.
This day-old bread is then soaked in a mixture of cream, milk, eggs and a generous splash
of vanilla extract.
The addition of vanilla transforms the soak into something akin to a sweet custard.
"Don't get me started on the vanilla.
I'll vanilla this whole room up."
But even you're not feeling the culinary vibes, your D.I.Y.
French toast can still be improved with the addition of vanilla extract — which brings
life to sweet treats in much the same way that salt does with savory dishes.
As one chef put it to HuffPost:
"I like to think of vanilla as a spice that enhances sweetness — the way salt brings
out the best of savoury ingredients.
Vanilla adds aroma in baked treats as well as custards and creams.
I also think it compliments the flavours of eggs and sugar incredibly.
Many chocolate producers add vanilla to their [finished] products, purely to give a more
rounded feel on the palette."
"Get your own French toast, Jess!
I got these slices so they're for me to eat.
If you want the slices, get your own slices."
Don't freak out — upgrading your French toast to the level of a top-notch Pain Perdu
is easier than you think.
If you don't have any cream or half-and-half on hand, The Spruce Eats says milk will do the trick.
Add to that your eggs, vanilla, and salt.
And if you wanna really step up your game, throw in a little cinnamon and allspice.
While every chef has a different opinion on how long to soak your slices — with Ina
Garten saying 4 minutes, and The Spruce Eats suggesting five to 10 — simply use your
best judgment based on what kind of bread you're using.
You want it to fully soak up the flavors without becoming a soggy mess.
"It's good."
At this point, it might make sense to mention that, although it's expensive, pure vanilla
extract is always the best option.
Imitation vanilla can contain some pretty gnarly ingredients like coal tar, wood pulp,
and even secretions from beavers.
Yikes.
They make up the chemical that gives artificial vanilla its flavor, but are they really things you want to eat?
"It's French toast.
It's your favorite.
Yeah.
I'm not really hungry."
Of course, with better quality comes a higher price tag.
But there's a reason real vanilla is so expensive.
The beans are extremely difficult to grow.
It can take up to four years for a vanilla vine to reach maturity and even then, the
flowers only bloom for one day of the entire year, which means in order for the vine to
produce it must be pollinated during that one day, according to Business Insider.
Plus, in Madagascar — where 80 percent of vanilla is grown — the right bees to pollinate
the plant, aren't part of the ecosystem.
So every flower has to be pollinated by hand on the one day of the year it's blooming.
If the weather shifts for the worst, the farmer is out of luck.
But wait, there's more.
Because vanilla is worth more by weight than silver, once the product is finally ready
for distribution, it is frequently subject to theft.
"I would really appreciate if your non-Tahitian vanilla was not touching my Tahitian vanilla."
It all kind of makes putting together a decent French toast recipe sound like a breeze!
Next time you want to impress your breakfast guests, get your hands on a bottle of that
good vanilla and make your brunch the greatest of all time.
"Let's get some f------ French toast."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite breakfast foods are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.