It’s May 14th and AP exams are finally over. More importantly, it’s Mother’s Day! My mom is amazing. My brother bought flowers; dad made congee; I decided to make mom breakfast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have flour, butter or sugar at home 😦 However, we did have bread, yogurt and lots of eggs. French toast it was. Of course, any ordinary french toast wouldn’t do, thus, behold:

Baked French toast sandwich with Nutella.

French toast seems simple, but there’s more than meet’s the eye. Don’t believe me, check out this Serious Eats article (click here) The article goes into great detail about ratios and such. I never paid that much detail or did that many experiments; however, I learned a few tricks:

1. Instead of using only cream or milk, add a bit of flavoured yogurt. Yogurt makes the custard thicker, creamier and more flavourful. I suggest a 1:1 ratio of yogurt to milk or nix the milk altogether. When using yogurt, cut back on sugar since most flavoured yogurts have more than enough sugar
2. Soak the toast for at least 5 minutes or until the custard penetrates the entire thickness of the bread( chop the crust off for best results). While soaking for as long as possible may seem like a good idea, over soaking will compromise the structural integrity of the toast and make the french toast floppy and flat. Unless you’re using day’s old and or very crusty bread, don’t soak for more than 30min.
3. Speaking of bread, any bread will work, but please stay away from very dense or very airy breads. For example, either pure white breads or those whole wheat health breads aren’t the best. I used semi- whole wheat bread, but some good Challah would’ve been better.

Without further ado, here’s a basic recipe for french toast. Feel free to customize:

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of bread
• 4 eggs
• 6 tbsp of flavored yogurt
• 4 tsp sugar, additional for sprinkling and caramelizing
• a splash of milk, no more than 1/4 cup
• Oil, butter or cooking spray

Directions

1. Preferably in separate bowls, beat each egg with 1.5tbsp of yogurt, 1 tsp of sugar and a splash of milk.
2. Dip and let the bread soak for a minimum of 5 min (refer to tip 2). Flip ever so often so all sides are covered. Optional: sprinkle both sides with a thin layer of sugar
3. Heat a pan to high heat and sear for 1-2 min/side or until a crust forms, then turn the heat down and cook for 1-2 more min/ side. Garnish as wanted!

Alternately, for a baked version

1. follow steps 1 and 2
2. Preheat the oven to 150C and bake for 10-20min, depending on the thickness of bread
3. Garnish as wanted, serve and Enjoy! optional: turn on the broiler or sear for a crust

Don’t have a sweet tooth? Check out this recipe for savoury toast (click here)Anyways, have a great Mother’s day and Enjoy some toast!

• Breakfast
• Other