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French Toast
12 slices bread ½ inch thick ½ teaspoon salt 3 eggs
Powdered sugar
2 cups milk
Beat the eggs, add the milk and salt. Dip slices of bread into this mixture and sauté in a little hot fat until a delicate brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve hot.
A plain, unsweetened batter typical of American cookbooks of the period, where the sugar goes on at the table rather than into the custard. A few points of translation.
- BreadHalf-inch slices of a firm white loaf, ideally a day or two old. Fresh soft sandwich bread will collapse in a custard this thin; stale bread absorbs without falling apart.
- The custard is deliberately leanThree eggs to 2 cups milk over 12 slices is only about three tablespoons of liquid per slice, with no sugar and no vanilla. It sets into a thin coating rather than the rich, sweet, cream-based soak now common. Dip briefly, a few seconds a side, or the bread waterlogs.
- "Powdered sugar"In books of this era the term often meant granulated sugar ground fine, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Either works here; superfine granulated is closer to the intent.
- "A little hot fat"Butter, lard or a mix. Keep the pan at a moderate heat and wipe it between batches to stop the milk solids burning.
- Sauté, not deep-fryThe instruction means a shallow film of fat in a skillet, turning once. "Delicate brown" is the target — a pale gold, not the dark mahogany of a modern brioche version.
- Egg safetyThe custard cooks through in the pan, but a thick slice pulled while still pale can be wet inside. Give each side two to three minutes and press the centre: it should feel set, not squashy.
- YieldTwelve slices serves four to six. The batter is easily halved.
French toast is much older than its English name, which is generally traced to no single origin; medieval and early modern European cookery has many versions of bread steeped in milk and egg and fried, including the Roman-era aliter dulcia and the English "poor knights of Windsor". The Butterick book, published by the pattern company as part of its broader campaign of domestic instruction for the middle-class housewife, treats it as an everyday breakfast economy — a use for stale bread. The absence of sugar, spice or vanilla in the batter is telling: sweetness came afterwards, sprinkled on by the cook before serving.