Crispy French toast

if you've ever had really crispy crunchy french toast at like a restaurant they probably put some kind of crumb coating on it or they deep fried it or both i did not deep fry these but i did do a crumb coating and they are crispy af and yet not at all greasy inside you can make french toast with any bread but i'm not alone in thinking that brioche or chala are the best options both styles of bread have egg and the egg keeps the bread from just dissolving and going mushy when soaked in custard this is brioche nice thick slices traditionally french toast is made with day-old bread and you could just leave these slices out overnight to stale but according to my experiments it works just as well to toast the bread with really low heat it isn't the stalin per se that improves french toast it's really the drying i need to heat my oven for this recipe anyway so i've just put my bread straight onto the bars and now i'll turn the heat on something moderate 350 fahrenheit 180c something like that i might flip them after a few minutes i'm not looking to really brown these i just want them dry and they'll dry some more as they cool and steam off for a few minutes you can fry french toast in any fat including butter but in my experiments it really comes out better with clarified butter i've got a stick 113 grams in a little pot should be enough to fry six pieces literally just turn the heat on low and let it sit for about 10 minutes it'll melt then boil off most of its water then it'll start fizzing and the milk solids will kind of curdle and eventually start turning golden it'll start to smell like caramel and that's it you can strain it through a paper towel to make it extra squeaky clean but most of the milk solids will just get caught in the sieve you can of course buy clarified butter or ghee from an indian grocery but we'll use all of that for just this breakfast clarified butter by the way gets a more even and lighter golden crust than whole butter would the milk solids tend to overcook i think you'll need at most one egg for every two pieces i usually use half that it depends on how custardy you like your french toast and if you're going for a sweet breakfast vibe you could throw in like a teaspoon of sugar per egg and maybe a splash of vanilla oh and a little pinch of salt mostly to help the egg thin out though if i was using unsalted butter i would use two pinches now a roughly equal quantity of milk or cream i did a side by side test and cream really does taste a lot better surprise surprise so i'm doing cream you really gotta stir this smooth if the egg is still all thick like that it's gonna have trouble absorbing into the bread really bash it with a fork or a whisk until the custard is nice and smooth oh and one other thing if you want it cinnamon it doesn't really dissolve in there it just kind of floats that's fine pour that into some kind of walled flat vessel a cake pan works really well too i'll grab another plate and pour on my crumb coating corn flake crumbs would be traditional and they have a nice flavor but no substance on earth is as crispy as panko maybe a cup of that one thing i like to do is grind the panko down with my hands a little bit i don't want a super coarse crumb stabbing me in the mouth yes panko is still crispier than other breadcrumbs even if you grind it down a little alrighty there's my dried and cooled bread and my clarified butter we're ready and everything up to this point you could do the night before breakfast you could cook this in any pan but if you use a non-stick you can get away with using only a very thin film of clarified butter minimizing that fat is good when we're frying something as absorbent as dried bread that thin film should lubricate things as effectively as the sponsor of this video lubricates my experience of the internet i'm talking about surf shark let me thank them say you want to buy something on the internet but they're going to charge you extra based on where they think you are going by your internet service provider it's no problem just fire up surfsharkvpn on any of your devices and you send your traffic through one of surfshark's secure servers in a different country boom problem solved same thing works if you are denied content based on where your internet service provider is surfshark has servers in nearly any country you could think of it's also good to use a vpn if you're on public wi-fi somewhere plus surf shark has tons of other tools for staying safe on the internet like surf shark alert there's surf shark antivirus and there's surf shark search private searching with no ads or tracking best part surf shark is cheap if you use my link and code in the description you'll get 83 percent off and three extra months for free just use my code adam regucia one word for 83 off thank you surf shark so the way lauren likes me to make french toast is a real quick dip in the custard she does not want the interior to be wet i just get the outside wet and then dip this straight into the bread crumbs by the way don't try to put cinnamon or other spices in the breadcrumbs they're liable to burn in there the cinnamon will be somewhat protected underneath the crumbs i'd mop up the butter with the toast a little bit just to make sure you've got a nice even layer of fat down there to fry the surface you want a nice gentle sizzle this is like medium low on my stove first side should only need a couple of minutes and when it's time to flip you might be tempted to use tongs but they tend to crush the bread irreparably at this stage so i use a spatula even though it's kind of awkward again i'd move things around just to mop up some of that butter if you don't the bottom tends to brown unevenly and i often find that i need to reduce my heat slightly at this stage the browning can get out of hand really fast that one's a little too dark and that one's a little too light once you've got the outside somewhat crispy and firm you can start flipping frequently which is good because then there's no surprises i can give that one the heat that it needs and this one i think is done when you've done just a quick dip in the custard the toast is done when the outside looks done you don't have to worry about the inside getting cooked let it drain and cool on a rack and it'll stay crispy for a long time another bonus of using a thin film of butter or oil is that i can just wipe this out with a paper towel now i don't have to worry about trying to fish out all those burned bits before i fry my next batch i'm gonna start fresh with a new film of clarified butter this batch i'll do more the way i like it which is to let the bread really soak up some custard how long it will take will depend on the bread and how dry you got it but i let these soak a couple of good minutes to the point where i could feel the bread going soft again near its core it's still a little firm it's not totally soaked through some people like it totally soaked through i've heard about people leaving the bread submerged overnight these are not going to be that custardy inside but they're still going to be more custardy than the batch i fried for lauren nice light crumb topping nice gentle sizzle in the pan and if you've soaked your bread through you've got to worry about cooking the inside not just the outside there's a real risk the outside will be burned by the time the inside custard is set so either you can take your heat way down low and just cook these very slowly in the pan or you can do what is my preference which is to quickly brown the outside just as we did before a couple of minutes on each side look you can see that piece puffing up that's the extra moisture on the inside steaming up it still feels a little squishy and raw on the inside so i will remove these to the rack and i will finish cooking them in my moderately hot oven you can just throw the rack in there if it's heat safe the earlier batch too with the panko crumb on it you can make a ton of french toast in advance and then crisp it back up in the oven right before everybody eats if anything it'll be even crispier so now i've got five or ten minutes where i can clean up and maybe whip some cream we already have cream for the custard just whip it on low speed for a couple of minutes until it starts to thicken up then you can boost the power without it splashing the trick with whipped cream is to stop whipping right before it goes from being smooth and silky like that to being kind of rough and cheesy and there i crossed the line nothing to be done about it it's still going to taste great especially if i put in a handful of sugar and a drop or two of vanilla mix that up done so you know these are going to be crispy again if you open up the oven and you can see the crust bubbling just a little bit that's absorbed butter refrying the surface i think i had those in there like seven minutes which is plenty to get the custard cooked through in the wetter batch here's the batch that's still dry in the center that's lauren's preference a little cream on top some berries would be very nice and fine canadians i caved and i got some real maple syrup you can really pour it on too because this is going to be crispy pretty much no matter what you do to it listen i remember this is the one we just quick dipped in the custard and so the inside just tastes like toast because that's all it is really light really crunchy nice if you're into that these are my pieces which are much heavier because they really soaked up some custard they're still basically dry at the very center but much more of their girth is custard and the custard cooked through because we baked this whatever you do definitely take time to dry the bread before you french toast it when the bread is still fresh and moist inside it just kind of collapses in the pan it comes out floppy and smashed flat this is still kind of airy inside which is why it is crispy crunch plus air equals crisp and bread plus butter and egg and cream equals sunday morning breakfast in my book

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 684,300

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Id: OYF7-ep9lQ4

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022