But this is not that french toast. This stuff is so tasty that you’ll barely need syrup. A dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of real syrup will put it over the edge though.

Simple but not standard.

I changed up my normal French toast routine for this version by substituting almond extract instead of vanilla. That’s a substitution that I’m doing more these days and so far I’ve always liked the almond version better. Also, I made a kind of crazy whipped cream with ricotta and honey. It turned out better than expected honestly.

Almond French Toast

Yield: Serves 3-4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup milk
2 large eggs
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Teaspoon almond extract (or vanilla)
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt
Butter or oil for cooking
8 thick slices of bread

Whipped Cream:
1 Cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 Cup mascarpone (or ricotta I guess)
1 Tablespoon honey

Helpful Equipment:
Cast Iron Skillet or Griddle

Directions:

1) If you're using homemade whipped cream, start by whipping the cream, honey, and mascarpone together in a bowl until the cream forms stiff peaks. Set in the fridge until ready.

2) Use a sturdy bread for this, stale is good, and slice to about 1/3 of an inch thick.

3) Lightly beat your eggs, milk, sugar, extract, and cinnamon together in a dish.

4) Add a dab of butter to a hot pan or griddle over medium heat (I used a cast iron pan).

5) Let your bread soak in the custard mixture for about 15 seconds. (Less if you're using a flimsy bread, more if you're using a sturdy bread)

6) Add to the hot pan and cook for 3-4 minutes per side until the toast is nice and brown.

7) Serve immediately with maple syrup, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and some fresh whipped cream.

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

Making the whipped cream

So my original plan with this whipped cream was to add a tiny bit of mascarpone cheese with the cream and add some honey. I figured it would be tasty with French toast. For some unknown reason, when I went to the store I purchased ricotta cheese instead of mascarpone cheese.

Since I had it, I figured I would try my idea with ricotta.

Something different...

The ricotta starts off almost like cottage cheese (and I was sure it would be a failure) but then after some serious whipping (which you have to do anyway) it smoothed out quite a bit and magically turned into whipped cream.

The honey gives this a great flavor and honestly the ricotta was very good. It gave the final product a lot of body. I’m not sure that I’d recommend buying ricotta just for this, but if you have extra and are trying to sneak it into things, this totally works and was actually pretty good.

Just add all your ingredients into a preferably chilled metal bowl and whisk like crazy until it turns into whipped cream!

Worked like a charm!

The French Toast

If you can at all help it, please don’t use flimsy white bread for french toast. It just kind of sucks in my opinion. You want something sturdy that can sop up a lot of the custard mixture and hold together without a problem.

You could definitely use no knead bread for this or any good french bread. While you can use fresh bread (I did for this recipe), it’s pretty standard to use older, stale bread. Since it’s kind of dry it’ll actually soak up even more of the custard which is a good thing.

Whichever bread you use, slice it pretty thick. I did about 1/3 of an inch slices.

Bread selection is very important.

This is a really basic french toast custard recipe. The only fancy thing I did was substitute almond extract for the vanilla.

If you’ve never used almond extract before, here’s my advice: Go buy some. Anytime you see vanilla extract in a recipe, try substituting almond extract for it. I’ve yet to find a recipe that doesn’t work great with almond instead of vanilla.

Basic stuff.

Lightly beat the eggs and milk together and then mix in your extract, sugar, and cinnamon. I like to use a pie dish for this because it’s shallow and the bread fits perfectly in it. A bowl would make it hard to get the bread soaking.

Depending on how sturdy and stale your bread is, you’ll need to soak it for different times. If you are using crappy white bread, you’ll need to soak it for about 5 seconds. If you’re using a sturdy stale bread, 45 seconds would be better.

I let my bread soak for about 15 seconds per side and that was about perfect. It should be heavy and clearly filled with custard, but not really soggy.

The long soak.

Cooking the French Toast

Unless you have a large griddle, you’ll probably have to cook these guys in batches which means you should also soak them in batches.

I used my trusty cast iron skillet to cook these. I put my skillet over medium-high heat and once it was heated, I added a tiny dab of butter to it. Then toss the bread straight in!

This will smell good immediately.

After cooking for 3 or 4 minutes on side one, give them a flip! They should be nice and browned but not burnt at all. Then another 3 or 4 minutes on side two.

Flipped!

Serve these up as soon as possible with a dollop of whipped cream, a sprinkle of cinnamon and some syrup!

Freakin' excellent.

This is a really quick way to feed a crowd a delicious brunch. Plus, if you plan right, you can just use stale bread for it! They’ll never know.

But I’m telling you… almond extract. That’ll have them coming back for more!

I wanted to do something simple given that I knew we were going to be out late the night before, so I settled on french toast. If done correctly, it is one of my favorite brunch foods.

You can't go wrong with French Toast.

What is hard to see in the above photo is the thin layer of caramelized brown sugar topping on each piece of toast. It gives them a bit of a crunchy top but the rest of the toast is rich with custardy goodness.

Caramelized French Toast (Recipe and Method taken from Best of America’s Test Kitchen)

- 8 slices high-quality white sandwich bread
- 6 large eggs
- 3/4 Cup half and half
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 Teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 Teaspoon salt
- 1/4 Cup vegetable oil
- 6 Tablespoons light brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
- 1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

Before I even begin on the french toast though, it is essential that you have whipped cream on hand.

Basic Whipped Cream

- 1 Cup heavy cream
- 1/8 Cup Sugar
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix this all together in a bowl and whisk it furiously for about 5-10 minutes depending on the furiousness of your whisking.

Homemade whipped cream is a staple at my brunches.

Also, mix together the last three ingredients on the french toast list (brown sugar, syrup, cinnamon) in a bowl. This will be the topping that we put on at the end. It should be pretty thick and have the consistency of wet sand.

Brown sugar. You DO make me feel so good.

Next, put all of your white bread in the oven at 300 degrees for 8 -10 minutes a side or until they are fairly crisp. You don’t want to brown them, but get out as much moisture as possible. Keep a close eye on them as you don’t want toast just yet. You just want dry bread.

Meanwhile, combine your eggs, half and half, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon juice, and salt in a large baking dish. Stir it up well.

This is not stirred up.

Once your bread is dried (and cooled!) set the bread slices in the custard mixture and let them absorb as much of it as possible. It should be okay to leave them in the mixture for 15 or 20 seconds a side. They should get soggy, but still be together. If they fall apart then either they were not dry enough or you bought really bad bread.

If done correctly though, your pieces will be very moist but still a piece of bread.

Next is a very important step. Let these pieces rest for a few minutes on a cooling rack. This will let the excess custard mixture drip off and also give the bread time to really absorb the mixture that is there.

Important step alert.

Meanwhile you can crank your oven up to 450.

One problem I have with the traditional way to make french toast is that you can only make a few pieces at a time if you are using a pan. If you have a griddle than you can do more I guess. The method that they use in this book though is amazing. Get a baking sheet and pour 1/4 Cup vegetable oil in it.

Swirl it around and put it in the oven to heat up for about 4 minutes. Once the oil is hot, lay your french toast right on the pan. I was able to fit 6 pieces per pan. It will sizzle and hiss and that’s good. Then back in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until the bottom sides are well browned.

Take them out and flip them over.

How to cook 12 pieces of french toast all at once.

Depending on your oven, you might have to move the trays around from top to bottom to get even cooking on both trays. I rotated mine after 4 minutes. Once you flip the pieces then sprinkle about 1 Tablespoon of the brown sugar topping on each piece. Don’t worry about lumps or if it is uneven. When it melts it will spread out.

This just kicks it up a notch.

Back in the oven for another 6 minutes and you should have lovely oven baked french toast. Keep a close eye on it the second time around as the brown sugar can go from perfect to burned in about 30 seconds.

Let it cool for a few minutes before eating. I served these with the whipped cream, syrup and some fresh strawberries.

A good way to start the day no doubt.

I must say I was very impressed by the method of making these guys. The brown sugar caramelized perfectly and they were easy to cook. The one criticism I would have about the method is that it does leave you with a pile of dishes. The way I’ve made french toast in the past, you just have a pan and a bowl. Now I have to clean baking sheets, cooling racks, bowls, and other random things. Not a big deal though and worth the extra work in my opinion.

Give this a shot if you are looking for a new french toast recipe!

It's like apple pie for breakfast.

It might look unassuming, but there is tons of flavor packed into that little slice. With French toast on the bottom, warm, soft apples in the center and topped with a delicious caramel glaze. There are also little dried cranberry and walnut gems throughout the whole deal. It’s not so hard to make though. Let’s get into it.

Baked Breakfast Apples with French Toast Crust (From Florence’s “Stirring the Pot“)
(Makes 8 servings. 90 minute prep time.)

French Toast
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup whole milk (I used 2%)
- 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 of a loaf of Challah bread. (I couldn’t find this so I used normal wheat bread. I’m sure the slightly sweet Challah bread would be MUCH better.)

Filling
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter (I used salted. So sue me.)
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons dried cranberries
- 2 Tablespoons chopped pecans
- 1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
- 6 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into eighths.

Preheat your oven to 350 and then combine all of your wet ingredients for the French toast in a large bowl. Add the cinnamon and salt and mix really well.

French Toast is easy stuff.

Next prep your apples. Peel them, cut out the core, and slice into eighths much like an apple pie. If you have an apple corer more power to ya.

6 apples is enough for a breakfast pie.

We aren’t going to use them just yet. To prevent the dreaded apple browning, I recommend adding a dash of lemon juice and tossing the apples in it. It will prevent browning and it doesn’t noticeably change the flavor in the end result.

Keep your apples fresh man.

Now it is time to bust out your cast iron skillet or similar oven safe pan. The cast iron skillet was made for this dish. I’m not really sure how you would make it without something you could transfer from stovetop to oven, but you might be more creative than me.

Assuming you do have a pan that can go from stovetop to oven, throw in your butter and sugar and let it start to simmer on medium. Watch this closely. You don’t want the caramel to burn. It will start to bubble and then stir it for a few minutes and let it thicken and brown a bit.

Making caramel.

Once all the sugar is well dissolved and it is browning, take it off the heat and sprinkle on your cranberries, walnuts, and cinnamon. I was very worried about this recipe at this point. My fear was that when I put this in the oven, the caramel would burn. Turns out I’m just a worrier. There was no problem at all.

I was worried about this recipe at this point.

Then take all your apples that are sliced and arrange them decoratively in the pan. The important part is to have a flat surface to lay your French toast crust. This configuration worked great.

This is almost too pretty for my liking.

Then take whatever bread you are using and dunk it in the French toast mixture. Let it soak up a good amount of juice on both sides.

Make sure your bread is soaked.

Again, decoratively layer those bad boys on top of your apples. You want to make sure there are not any holes. Other than that it doesn’t matter what configuration you use. This layer method worked great for me though. One in the direct middle and then overlapping pieces around the edge.

I started to feel good at this point.

This whole dish goes in the oven for 55 to 60 minutes at 350. You want your toast browned and crispy and your apples soft. If I make this again (I probably will), I would cook it for a bit less time. I went for 60 minutes and the apples were a bit too soggy. Still delicious but I would go for 50-55 minutes next time.

Your call though depending on how soft you like your apples and how crispy you like your toast.

Looks like bent toast.

The moment of truth. You have to flip this whole dish upside down. I was scared to death of this part. I didn’t think that caramel sauce would come out and everything would just be stuck to the inside of the pan. This did not happen. All of the butter in the bottom let it slide right out.

I put a baking sheet over the top of the dish, put a hand on each side of the pot. So each hand was holding the baking sheet firmly onto the pan. Then take a deep breath and FLIP.

I let mine sit for 10 seconds while I caught my breath. Then lifted off the pan to find:

Flipping this thing scared me.

Looks perfect! Slice this with a knife or pizza cutter and serve it up like pie. The caramel sauce almost acts as a syrup and the apples provide a bit of tang. Pretty delicious if you have the time to make it.