'Rustic' French toast for lunch

My wife and I wanted to eat the 'rustic loaf' that we bought at Knead Patisserie for yesterday's soup while it was still fresh, so we decided to do something special for lunch today: make french toast! I think it was the first time I've made french toast for lunch, but it was quite the experience. Really made it feel like I was on holiday.

To me, french toast means soft white bread soaked in loads of egg mixture. In Hong Kong, it's common to even have it with peanut butter and butter. I wasn't a big fan of that sort of french toast, although I liked it with condensed milk, which is just as unhealthy(!)

But nowadays, since I started cooking my own food, I've started to enjoy and really appreciate herbs and spices in my food, even if it isn't quite obvious what the herb is. So I often add cinnamon (or nutmeg) to my french toast.

the final product; all it needs is some maple syrup or honey!

I'll admit I didn't actually do much here, my wife found a simple recipe and put together the ingredients (spices included). I was in charge of whisking the eggs and cooking it.

We used:
4 eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp milk (Devondale long-life milk, as we rarely drink milk)
8 slices of bread
(Toppings)
Butter
Honey
Vanilla sugar

batter for french toast

As with pancakes, controlling the temperature is quite important and can determine the fate of your final cooked product. Things get especially tricky when you're using an electric element to cook, which not only one of the least energy-efficient means of cooking but also can be quite inconvenient in terms of temperature control. The main problem is that it takes forever to heat up and cool down your cooking pan or pot. I usually compensate turning it up really high and then lowering it and waiting for it to stabilise in temperature before I start the actual cooking. I can't wait to start using a gas or IH cooktop, which is much more cooking-friendly!

cooking french toast properly has
much to do with timing and heat

The chewy texture of the rustic loaf means that it doesn't soak up the egg mixture, especially when given only 20 seconds. (It was getting late and I really want to have my lunch ASAP!) So after cooking the first batch and finding it a bit on the dry side, I tried cooking it a bit differently in this way:

1. Soak the non-soaking bread in the mixture as per usual, and pierce it a little bit to get more egg to cover the egg on the inside.
2. Cook it on one side for a short period, making sure it doesn't brown too quickly.
3. Flip it over, and pour more egg batter on the top. A little spillage is okay, but try to keep most of the egg to remain on the surface.
4. Again before the bottom side gets overcooked, flip the toast over, and add more egg mixture on the top side, as per previous step.
5. The more times you keep pouring a bit of egg, the softer your toast will become :)

I ended up doing pouring the batter four times (that's all I had left). This resulted in a much softer french toast and my wife liked it better! That's all that matters.

I would love to hear from readers about their french toast experiences! In particular, I'm interested to know when and why you make french toast (is it to use left-over bread, or is it your favourite weekend breakfast? or dinner?!), and any special recipes you might have.