Total Time: 10 minutes
Serves 2
- 2 beaten eggs
- ½ c milk
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg, optional
- 4 slices bread
- syrup
- 3 Tbsp butter
- In shallow bowl/pan beat all ingredients except bread, syrup and butter. Dip bread in egg mix, coating both sides.
- In skillet, or on griddle, melt butter over medium heat. Add half of bread slices and cook 2-3 minutes each side or until golden brown. Repeat with remaining bread. Serve warm with syrup!
The original French Toast recipe I used came from Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook: Special Pink Edition and, over the course of many years, has evolved into the recipe above. Over the course of five years to be more precise.
Christmas of 2006 was the year I asked for recipes. That was all I wanted. To grow my very own recipe collection as I began to venture away from home and out on my own. And I didn’t want just any recipes. I wanted tried and true. Recipes I grew up on. Recipes that were near and dear to the givers themselves.
I made an exception for those that asked if I’d like cookbooks. I requested that if giving a cookbook, that a personal note be included as well. To give it that special touch. And I’m sure glad I asked for that otherwise I would not have this date of Christmas 2006. Before I found the note I surely didn’t think I’d been making this French Toast recipe for that long. My guess was 2008 or 2007 at best.
So, as you can see I’ve been working with this recipe for quite some time. My husband’s favorite is French Toast so it was my goal to perfect it. And while I stuck to the recipe, line by line, for the longest time, it still didn’t turn out to my expectations. Yes, my expectations, not his. He’s always been very good about clearing the plate of anything I put in front of him with little to no comment. To me, it was more soggy than the French Toast I’d had at restaurants. And because I didn’t like how it turned out, I dreaded making it which meant he only got one of his breakfast favorites once in a great while.
I started by cutting the recipe in half. The original recipe was to serve four. That meant eight pieces of toast in one go. That’s easily half a loaf! Obviously that was way too much for just the two of us. But that simple change didn’t do much and still the recipe wasn’t quite right.
Then during this past year, I nonchalantly cut off a random hunk of butter (not the usual ½ to 1 Tbsp called for) and tossed it in the pan. I put in more like 3 Tbsp and that was it! Which I suppose makes sense, right? Doesn’t butter – and the more the better – improve the taste of just about anything? But it had never dawned on me before. Little ol’ me too scared to stray from the recipe all these years. That random hunk of hot butter fried the sogginess right out! That batch came out perfectly crisp on the outside with that gorgeous golden-brown glow that only the right amount of butter can provide and a nice fluffliness on the inside. And now that I’ve finally had success in reaching my expectations, I really enjoy making French Toast.
Perhaps one of this year’s new recipes that I’m less than fond of will be perfected in another five years!
PS – Don’t forget to complete your French Toast meal with microwaveable bacon and to top it off, warmed syrup!