If you've ever had really crispy crunch French toast at, like, a restaurant, they probably
put some kind of crumb coating on it, or they deep fried it — or both. I did not deep
fry these but I did do a crumb coating and they are crispy AF, and yet not at all greasy
inside.
You can make French toast with any bread, but I'm not alone in thinking that brioche
or challah are best options. Both styles of bread have egg, and the egg keeps the bread
from just dissolving and going mushy when soaked in custard. This is brioche, nice thick
slices.
Traditionally, French toast is made with day-old bread, and you could just leave these slices
out overnight to stale. But according to my experiments, it works just as well to toast
the bread with really low heat.
It isn't the staling per se that really improves French toast — it's the drying. I need to
heat my oven for this recipe anyway so I've just put my bread straight onto the bars and
now I'll turn the heat on something moderate, 350ºF/180ºC, something like that. I might
flip them after a few minutes. I'm not looking to brown these really. I just want them dry,
and they'll dry some more as they cool and steam off for a few minutes.
You can fry French toast in any fat, including butter, but in my experiments it really comes
out better with clarified butter. I've got a stick, 113g, in a little pot. Should be
enough to fry six pieces. Literally just turn the heat on low and let it sit for about 10
minutes. It'll melt, then boil off most of its water, then it'll start fizzing and the
milk solids will kinda curdle and eventually start turning golden. It'll start to smell
like caramel and that's it.
You can strain it through a paper towel to make it extra squeaky clean, but most of the
milk solids will just get caught in a sieve. You can, of course buy clarified butter, or
ghee from an Indian grocery. But we'll use all of that for this breakfast. Clarified
butter by the way gets a more even and lighter golden crust than whole butter would. The
milk solids tend to overcook.
I think you'll need at most one egg for every two pieces. I usually use half that. It depends
on how custardy you like your French toast. And if you're going for a sweet breakfast
vibe, you could throw in like a teaspoon of sugar per egg, and maybe a splash of vanilla.
Oh, and a little pinch of salt, mostly to help the egg thin out. Though if I was using
unsalted butter, I'd use two pinches.
Now a roughly equal quantity of milk or cream. I did a side-by-side test, and cream really
does taste a lot better, surprise surprise, so I'm doing cream. You really got stir this
smooth. If the egg is still all thick, like that, it'll have a lot of trouble absorbing
into the bread. Really bash it with a fork or a whisk until this custard is nice and
smooth.
Oh, one other thing, if you want it — cinnamon. It doesn't really dissolve in there — it
just kinda floats. That's fine. Pour that into some kind of walled, flat vessel. A cake
pan works really well too.
I'll grab another plate and pour on my crumb coating. Cornflake crumbs would be traditional
and they have a nice flavor, but no substance on earth is as crispy as panko. Maybe a cup
of that. One thing I like to do is grind the panko down with my hands a little bit. I don't
want a super-coarse crumb stabbing me in the mouth. Yes, panko is still crispier than other
breadcrumbs even if you grind it down a little.
Alrighty, there's my dried and cooled bread, and my clarified butter. We're ready. And
everything up to this point you could do the night before breakfast.
You can cook this in any pan, but if you use a nonstick you can get away with only a thin
film of clarified butter. Minimizing that fat is good when we're frying something as
absorbent as dried bread.
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So, the way Lauren likes me to make French toast is a real quick dip in the custard.
She does not want the interior to be wet. I just get the outside wet and then dip this
straight into the breadcrumbs. By the way, don't try to put cinnamon or other spices
in the breadcrumbs. They're liable to burn in there. The cinnamon will be somewhat protected
underneath the crumbs.
I'd mop up the butter with the toast a little bit, just to make sure you've got a nice even
layer of fat down there to fry the surface. You want a nice gentle sizzle. This like medium-low
on my stove. First side should only need a couple minutes. And when it's time to flip,
you might be tempted to use tongs, but they tend to crush the bread irreparably at this
stage, so I use a spatula even though it's kinda awkward.
Again, I'd move things around just to mop up some of that butter. If you don't, the
bottom tends to brown unevenly. And I often find I need to reduce my heat slightly at
this stage. The browning can get out of hand really fast. That one's a little too dark,
and that one's a little too light. Once you've got the outside somewhat crispy and firm,
you can start flipping frequently, which is good because then there's no surprises. I
can give that one the heat that it needs, and this one, I think, is done.
When you've just done a quick dip in the custard, the toast is done when the outside looks done.
You don't have to worry about the inside. Let it drain and cool on a rack and it'll
stay crispy for a long time.
Another bonus of using a thin film of butter or oil is that I can just wipe this out with
a paper towel now. I don't have to worry about trying to fish out all those burned bits before
I fry my next batch. I'ma start fresh with a new film of clarified butter.
This batch I'll do more the way I like it, which is to let the bread really soak up some
custard. How long it will take will depend on the bread and how dry you got it. But I
let these soak a couple of good minutes, to the point where I could feel the bread going
soft again near its core. It's still a little firm. It's not totally soaked through. Some
people like it totally soaked through — I've heard about people leaving the bread submerged
overnight.
These are not being to be that custardy inside, but they'll still be more custardy than the
batch I fried for Lauren. Nice, light crumb topping. Nice gentle sizzle in the pan. And
if you've soaked your bread through, you've gotta worry bout cooking the inside, not just
the outside.
There's a real risk the outside will be burned by the time the inside custard is set. So
either you can take your heat way down low and just cook these very slowly in the pan,
or you can do what is my preference, which is to quickly brown the outside, just as we
did before — a couple minutes on each side. Look, you can see that piece puffing up — that's
the extra moisture on the inside steaming up. It still feels a little squishy and raw
on the inside.
So I will remove these to the rack and I will finish cooking them in my moderately hot oven.
You can just throw the rack in there, if it's heat-safe — the earlier batch, too. With
the panko crumb on it, you can make a ton of French toast in advance and then crisp
it back up in the oven right before everybody eats. If anything it'll be even crispier.
So now I've got five or ten minutes where I can clean up and maybe whip some cream — we
already have the cream for the custard. Just whip it on low speed for a couple minutes
until it starts to thicken up. Then you can boost the power without it splashing.
The trick with whipped cream is to stop whipping right before it goes from being smoothy and
silky like that to being kinda rough and cheesy and there, I crossed the line. Nothing to
be done about it. It'll still taste great, especially if I put in a handful of sugar
and little drop or two of vanilla. Mix that up, done.
So, you know these are crispy again if you open the oven and you can see the crust bubbling
just a little bit. That's absorbed butter re-frying the surface. I think I had those
in there seven minutes which is plenty to get the custard cooked through in the wetter
batch. Here's the batch that's still dry in the center, Lauren's preference.
A little cream on top. Some berries would be berry nice. And fine, Canadians, I caved
and I got real maple syrup. You can really pour it on, because this is gonna be crispy
pretty much no matter what you do it. Listen.
Now remember, this is the one we just quick-dipped in the custard and so the inside just tastes
toast, because that's all it is. Really light, really crunchy. Nice — if you're into that.
These are my pieces, which are much heavier because they really soaked up some custard.
They're still basically dry at the very center, but much more of their girth is custard, and
the custard cooked though because we baked this.
Whatever you do, definitely take time to dry the bread before you French toast it. When
the bread is still fresh and moist inside it just kinda collapses in the pan. It comes
out floppy and smashed flat. This is still kinda airy inside, which is why it is crispy.
Crunch plus air equals crisp. And bread plus butter and egg and cream equals Sunday morning
breakfast, in my book.