The recipe I made this week for French Fridays with Dorie from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table cookbook, is Sugar-Crusted French Toast, found on page 418.
Ingredients: eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, salt, Challah bread, butter, and confectioner’s sugar for dusting, if desired.
We make French Toast occasionally. When I was growing up we abstained from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent. Wednesdays were always called Batter Night as my mother would serve something made with batter…pancakes, waffles, French Toast, etc. I’ve always loved French Toast, plain and simple, with, as Dorie suggested just a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Mark eats his with butter and sugar, we are not syrup people. So, when I saw this recipe and I knew I would have Challah at hand (I made it for another blog recipe earlier in the week), I marked it for just the thing to make. I am so sorry I did that…I will never be able to look at plain French Toast again in the same way, I will always want THIS French Toast.
The recipe is simple, easy, and quick. There isn’t anything too different in the batter, but the way it is cooked is everything. The instructions say to melt butter in the pan, sprinkle some sugar on it, put your batter soaked bread onto the pan, cook until nice and toasty, sprinkle sugar on the top of the pieces, flip them, cooking them until nice and toasty, and plating them. Simple, but oh my goodness the sugar gets caramelized in the pan and it has a deep nutty buttery crunchy flavor that makes this the best French Toast. We didn’t even add anything to the top, it didn’t need a thing as it was perfect as it was when it came out of the pan. Mark had a side of bacon with his and pronounced it wonderful. I was originally going to make this for Ash Wednesday but it seemed a little too decadent and Mark suggested having it when it could be accompanied by the bacon, of course. He thinks Batter Night is a good idea but that it should not be in Lent as it needs some bacon or sausage on the side. This French Toast recipe didn’t need a single thing in my mind, it is absolutely delicious.