RECIPE | Fancy Nancy French Toast

My first encounter with French toast consumption is (gasp) out of a Trader Joe's freezer box. I never really had legit French toast until my college days where the selection of Americanized breakfast foods, and the presence of strawberry stuffed French toast, pretty much blew me away (go Pippin Commons and your outstanding waffle station!). As a self-proclaimed picky-eater extraordinaire, my idea of the perfect French toast contains crispity crunchity edges and a carmelized warm non-mushy custard-y center all doused in a healthy heaping of syrup and powdered sugar. If I were ever to have my own TV show like Tyler's Ultimate, I'd probably name it Picky-Eater Extraordinaire and curse my younger self for thinking Trader Joe's French toast was as good as it's gonna get. Although I've come a long way from TJs with a renewed appreciation for this classic American breakfast delicacy, alas, I have in my travels yet to come across my "ultimate" French toast...so I scoured the Interwebs and found a recipe suuuper close to what I was looking for.

Fancy Nancy French Toast

(recipe credit to Food Wishes)
(Serves 6)

Ingredients

(1) 1 cup milk
(2) 4 eggs
(3) 1 loaf French bread (day old is fine!)
(4) butter
(5) 2 tsp vanilla
(6) 1 tsp cinnamon
(7) pinch of salt
(8) maple syrup (not shown)
(9) powdered sugar (optional, not shown)

Steps

1. Slice your bread into 1.5 inch slices. You want them them on the thicker side so that it can soak up the custard mixture.

2. In a bowl, combine the milk, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk well. (There are only two eggs because I ended up having to double the custard mixture for the whole loaf.)

3. Dunk and thoroughly soak each slice in the custard mixture. 

4. Heat up a shallow pan with about a half tablespoon of butter and lightly fry the slices on each side until nice and caramelized. This will give you those yummy crispy edges!

5. Place the slices on a baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven, until they turn a nice shade of golden brown. This will custard-ize the insides of the toast.

6. Carefully remove the slices from the pan. Stack and drizzle 'em with some maple syrup and a sprinkling of powdered sugar (which I forgot to take a picture of). Serve warm. Consumption with fruit and/or some vanilla bean ice cream is absolutely recommended. 

Because these are meant to be consumed with syrup and/or sugar, there isn't any sugar added to the custard mixture itself. If you want it a little more on the sweet side or are not planning to eat it with syrup, add in 2 tablespoons of sugar to your custard mixture. 

Yummmmm~