4 Levels of French Toast: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi I'm Emily and I am a level one chef hi i'm lorenzo and my level two chef hi I'm penny and I've been a professional chef for 15 years the last time I made this recipe was six months ago when I was alone because I would never make this for someone who isn't me the last time I made french toast was a couple weeks ago not a month that goes by that i don't make french toast I've made this french toast anytime that we had leftover vodka from my bakery that was about to go stale so the first thing that we need is print what i like to use for french toast is just regular white pre sliced print I have a lovely loaf of brioche and I'm gonna cut three quarters of an inch the best bread or french toast is actually stale or day-old bread because it soaks up the soaking liquid much better for the bread for my french toast I'm gonna be making a vodka vodka is essentially a brioche dough which is a really rich eggy fatty dough that has chocolate strewn throughout it and I'm gonna transfer my brioche dough and then I'm going to chill the dough overnight okay I'm gonna take my filling melted chocolate and I'm gonna spread it out to the side roll the dough and I'm gonna cut straight down I'm gonna do a parade and put this into the pan I'll bake it at 350 degrees for anywhere between 25 and 35 minutes so now I'm going to make the egg mixture which is basically a yummy custard is why you're making flour with the flour it's gonna be crispy on the outside eggs of course one whole cup of whole milk to thin it out a little bit 1/2 a teaspoon of ground cinnamon vanilla I'm gonna zest some of this orange and very important sugar I don't really put any other flavorings or spices don't burn would hate this we're just gonna whisk this and this is really important make sure everything is well incorporated I use it as pork instead of a whisk because I don't have a dishwasher and I don't want to wash all this so I'm just warming up my pan over medium heat I'm gonna heat this up slow and low I'm gonna start pretty high and then after that I'm gonna turn it down a little bit so the next thing I'm going to do is soak my bread in my egg mixture and you go swimming away so some people really like to soak their french toast I'm really more of a Dipper I don't really want it super eggy mmm I want to be careful the babka might tend to fall apart a little bit so I'm gonna use the spatula to move it around you don't want to press this brioche because it's nice and fluffy still oh that's so bad wait put that there we go and bing-bang-boom I could actually see and hear that idiot says living away I'm gonna see what's happening on the other side well hey that's pretty come on that's pretty this side looks done to me it looks said it doesn't look wet at all I'm gonna take this off now yeah that's done and oh my lord have mercy that looks good you can garnish this with whatever you want I like to put ketchup on because I'm a monster okay here we go I'm gonna put some butter powdered sugar to make it pretty some Nutella here and with a little bit of maple syrup I have roasted bananas in maple syrup whipped creme fraiche and a crumb topping to add a little bit of crunchiness and on the very top will be orange dress so this looks about right I would eat this alone in the dark maybe I will eat this for dinner this is fantastic I think it looks amazing the toast itself looks caramelized the bananas look soft and yielding the whipped creme fraiche looks beautiful and soft and pillowy and the orange zest really makes me want to dig in [Music] [Music] holy smokes folks we've seen three different ways of doing french toast the essential elements of french toast our bread eggs and milk let's start with bread the bread you choose makes a difference Emily used a store-bought sandwich white bread which has a lot of preservatives in it like calcium propionate high fructose corn syrup things like mono and diacylglycerol these are not things that you necessarily want in your french toast lorenzo used brioche which is an enriched dough it's got a lot of additional eggs and fat in it so it gives a nice tender bread unlike the white bread that's gonna soak up and become soggy and fall apart your brioche is gonna hold up a little bit better stale bread is a really good choice for french toast when you take your stale bread and you dip it into your custard base it's going to soak up just enough to make for a crispy outside and it's going to be nice and fluffy on the inside when you use a bread like emily did its synthetically fresh it's what's usually in my house and it tastes better than whole wheat it's gonna soak up a lot of the custard right away and it's gonna make a really wet french toast that's gonna fall apart almost immediately penny used a day-old vodka the vodka has a lot of fat in it which is going to interfere with the soaking in of the moisture from the custard it's also been needed so you've developed some gluten gluten is something that you absolutely want your bread dough's that's also going to make for a chewy R type of bread that's going to also impede the so of the custard and then the fact that it's a day old means it's already lost a lot of its moisture and so it's gonna want to soak up the custard just enough day-old bread is traditionally used to make high-quality french toast for all of those reasons the perfect thickness for french toast is about 3/4 to one inch three quarters of an inch Emily use something that was too thin and it just soaked up the custard too readily and it fell apart both Lorenzo and Penny had the proper thickness and you can see the difference in the results custard is a mixture of dairy products like milk and eggs sometimes it's cooked sometimes it's stirred and sometimes it's used to coat things like your french toast when you combine these things on heat you're gonna have really nice mayor browning and carmelization mayor browning is a non enzymatic reaction between an amino acid and reducing sugar there are many good qualities from a flavor perspective that come about as the result of mayor Drowning nutty notes butterscotch notes deep rich kind of earthy notes that you get that you don't get from other types of browning reactions so I just eyeball the amount of milk that I'm gonna put in the ratio of milk and eggs is very important fill exuberant Emily used too many eggs in her custard and not enough milk she got too much browning on the outside and the inside fell apart it just sort of made a little hole here Lorenzo and Penny used a really good ratio of liquid to egg three eggs easy-peasy one whole cup of whole milk so that they got the nice crispy outside browning as well as the fluffy interior don't want it to be too eggy it'll be too dense and heavy when you're making your custard it's good to mix your eggs and your dairy very well make sure everything is well incorporated you don't want spots of egg white and egg yolk and wet spots from the milk in your french toast when you mix your eggs the egg white or the albumin needs to be well incorporated there's a protein called oval music that gives that globular quality to the egg white and if it's not incorporated you're gonna have big chunks of egg white in your french toast you don't want to over soak your french toast remember you want to crispy outside and a fluffy but not wet interior if you soak it for a long time like Emily did for about a minute on each side it's gonna be super wet if you soak it for a moderate amount of time like Lorenzo 20 seconds on each side might be on the wet side but a little more fluffy penny did it perfectly great she did a quick turn in the custard and got her french toast too right on the grill and she got that crispy outside and the fluffy interior you can complement your french toast with a variety of toppings like our chefs did ketchup oh if you want a crunchy element which is a nice contrast to a softer french toast you can add a crumble like penny did we've just seen three different ways of making french toast you want to take into consideration the bread the custard and the cooking techniques when you make your own [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 6,671,097

Rating: 4.8778439 out of 5

Keywords: 4 levels, french toast, food scientist, amateur chef, french toast 4 levels, 4 levels epicurious, 4 levels of, professional chef, homemade french toast, french toast epicurious, how to make french toast, make french toast, making french toast, french toast recipe, best french toast, amateur french toast, professional french toast, easy french toast, 4 levels of french toast, 4 levels french toast, epicurious 4 levels, easy french toast recipe, toast, epicurious

Id: 6cFAYjQw2CA

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/nick47H]

I really like the first half of these videos before the food scientist shows up and ruins them with her extendable pointer.

[u/rarecoder]

As someone who isn't too awesome in the kitchen, I really like these videos because they help break down what does what and why in each dish. Totally stepped up my choco chip cookie and hamburger game already as well.

[u/Brycery91]

Emily can go to hell. Ketchup!? Really?!

[u/[deleted]]

Alright, I am now absolutely convinced that the Level1 person is a plant and made to behave as dumb as possible to incite outrage to get people to share the video more. They did this in the burger video as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERUugjLmwuY where the Level1 person behaved like they had never made a burger before and was only told by mouth what to do a minute before filming started.

Edit: See /u/Brycery91 's comments and people replying to him. That's the kind of reaction the makers of this video want because they know some of them will show their friends going, "look how awful that is! can you believe that!?"

[u/aerilink]

What is the point of this series? To shit on amateurs?

[u/bigboyg]

Lorenzo wins again.

I love this series!

[u/GraywolfofMibu]

The world needs more Emily. Shorty is thicc.

[u/roastbeeftacohat]

haven't watched it yet, but is that a fucking tomato?

read top comment, oh my god.

[u/Last_Rogue]

So 3 levels of actually making french toast. The 4th level is just talking about how to make french toast while putting down people who actually make french toast.

Got it.