General holiday lethargy has led me to the art of pain perdu, mainly because I’ve been so lazy that all my groceries have been edging towards expiration.
While old eggs aren’t really too salvageable, day-old bread is perfect for a number of recipes, two of which I’ve explored recently: stuffing and French toast. The reason, in case your grasp of science and hydration isn’t up to par, is because hardened, dried-up bread soaks up liquids better, whereas if you’re using nice and new and moist bread, it’s just going to get too wet and soggy.
In this case, we had some Bo-Lo-Gne sliced bread that had seen better days. I use Bo-Lo-Gne bread a lot on this blog, and that’s because it’s the finest way to simultaneously induce pleasure and a heart attack for any carb lover. Dusted liberally in butter, it’s rolled and folded over precisely 81 times till it’s the flakiest thing to meet this earth since our friend Gordon (hey Gordon, what happened to you on Saturday?) I’m pretty sure the ratio is about 50/50 butter, a balance we’re going to toy with in a bit because French toast is pan-fried in… you got it… butter.
Obviously recipes normally suggest you fry up an entire batch, but I’m a sad and lonely loser who often cooks for one or two. So why am I always halving and quartering recipes? If you want more of this, then double it or triple it. I happened to have one slice of leftover toast and one hungry belly craving French toast, and I’m okay with that.
Ingredients
- 1 slice of Bo-Lo-Gne bread
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup milk or cream, depending on how your weight and arteries are
- 1 teaspoon honey
- Pinch of salt
- Dash of vanilla paste or extract
- Knob of butter for frying
- Powdered sugar and maple syrup for serving
If you have the ingredients, it probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what to do with them. Combine the egg, cream, honey, salt and vanilla in a shallow dish, whisk together, and then soak your thick-cut day-old bread. If you don’t have Bo-Lo-Gne, use something else thick and relatively sturdy, like brioche or challah. Baguettes are meant to be great if you prefer chewy to custardy, but I do not.
Soak one side for about five minutes, and then turn over and do another five. If you’re doing the whole Lonely Man’s Brunch there basically shouldn’t be any liquid left in the platter, but of course that depends on the bread you use and how aged it is. If you’re doing a batch then do each slice for about 10 minutes total, till your slices are soaked through and heavy but not falling apart.
Then we fry that guy up with some butter…
…until it looks like this. Flip, repeat, then serve.
Oh, that’s just a video for y’all. And some thematic Bruno Mars.
And don’t forget to take a picture of your French toast before you eat it. You know, if you were planning to blog about it. As you can see, I’m leading by example here.
The Eggs Factor 