March is All About Eggs – Week 4: French Toast

To cap off March is All about Eggs, t! has graciously provided his famous French Toast recipe:

Ingredients

• Bread. Of course.
• Eggs. Happy Egg Month! How many eggs you need will depend on the bread’s size and absorbency. Unfortunately, due to inconsistent egg sizes on the part of our girls, and Jan’s pioneer spirit in the adventure of homemade bread making, I haven’t managed to compile any consistent data. For bread slices with the approximate surface area of a CD case, figure 1 egg per 2 slices. Hearty homemade bread absorbs less egg, sad ol’ supermarket white (being mostly empty) absorbs a lot more. Egg bread falls somewhere in between. Try not to use the end slices, since the crusts are not absorbent.
• Butter. For the pan. I used margarine back when I didn’t know better, but once I discovered the difference I never went back. Oil is not recommended, olive oil actively discouraged.
• Cinnamon Powder. To taste.
• Allspice Powder. Kinda like cinnamon, but different enough to be worth adding.
• Nutmeg Powder. Nice earthy contribution to the flavours.
• Cardamom Powder. Cools off the sharpness, a perfect complement.

Optional ingredients / variants:

• Milk. I think recipes only call for milk in the batter so that less eggs will be used, but why on Earth would you want to use less eggs? Plus, it makes the batter thinner, which is not ideal. I use only eggs.
• Ginger. I’ve found that it’s either not enough or too much, too subtle or jarringly sharp. Unless you’re a big ginger fan, or feeling under the weather, I wouldn’t bother.
• Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps. The result will taste slightly of alcohol, but the advantages are a very nice cinnamon flavour and a bit of caramelising when it cooks. Use sparingly; a little goes a long way.
• Fireball Cinnamon-Flavoured Whiskey. A poor substitute for the Goldschlager, this will thin out the batter and not caramelise as nicely.
• Stone’s Ginger Wine. Combines the thinness of Fireball with the disadvantages of powdered ginger. Instead of putting it in the batter, drink it while you cook; it makes an excellent brunch aperitif.
• Cocoa Powder. Sprinkle, like the cinnamon powder, rather than adding to batter. Subtle.

1. GET A BOWL WITH A BIG ENOUGH BOTTOM TO FIT THE BREAD SLICES. Otherwise you wind up having to bend the bread to get it soaked, causing it to crumble into pieces, or leaving certain spots un-battered, grr.
2. In the bowl, beat the eggs. Make it nice n’ airy.
3. Heat pan, add butter. While it’s melting…
4. Add all powdered spices to egg batter, *except* cinnamon. Adjust to your taste. (How do you know what you’ll like? Trial and error, which is awesome because it means you get to eat more French toast!) Stir well. (Cinnamon will not stir properly in, but rather will form sticky balls of attack spice, so we add it later.)
5. Dip a bread slice in the batter, face down, lift out, allow excess to drain (or not, for a *really* eggy result, as you prefer) and repeat for other face. Place facedown on hot buttered pan. Be careful when you do this, because once the egg hits the pan you don’t really want to move the slice until that side is cooked. You can, but the batter streaks.
6. Repeat for remaining bread slices. You may want to stir the batter between each slice, because the spices will settle. I just do my battering quickly. And give that extra-yummy last piece to my wife.
7. Once all bread slices are on pan, powder them with cinnamon. I don’t press them with the spatula at all, because it’s unnecessary and the spatula will lift off the uncooked batter and cinnamon.
8. After five minutes or so, the edges of the slices will have curled up and away from the pan a bit. Test one of the slices by bumping it sideways with your spatula. If it moves easily, all the batter on that side is cooked. Flip over the slices. You can press them down now if you really want to.
9. I add more cinnamon here, but it’s up to you. If you do, flip the slices over and press down to cook the cinnamon in before serving.
10. When the egg on both sides is cooked, you’re done!

Serve with maple syrup. (Not corn syrup. EVER.) You can have jam if you want, but I find the recipe doesn’t really fit well with sweet fruit toppings, personally. I butter the slices on my plate only if I’ve burnt them, but as with most of this recipe, that’s really up to you.