Home › Breads, Biscuit and Rolls › French Toast
French Toast
Beat an egg and add to it one cup of sweet milk and a little salt; a little sugar may be added to the milk if desired. Dip slices of bread into the mixture, allowing them to absorb a little of it, then brown the slices on a hot, buttered griddle or a thick-bottomed frying-pan. Butter and serve hot.
A bare-bones version of a dish most cooks now make richer. The proportions here are thin by modern standards, which changes how the bread must be handled.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk that a period kitchen also kept on hand. Whole milk is the closest match.
- The custard is leanOne egg to a full cup of milk gives a very loose dip that soaks in fast and browns pale. Modern recipes commonly call for two or three eggs per cup, for a custard that sets rather than steams.
- Bread matters more than anythingBread a day or two old, cut about three-quarters of an inch thick, will absorb the mixture without collapsing. Fresh soft sandwich bread turns to paste in a thin custard like this one.
- "Absorb a little of it"Take it literally: a few seconds a side. The instruction is the hinge of the recipe, since a thin custard will waterlog bread that sits in it.
- Griddle heatThe recipe calls for a hot griddle, but moderate heat serves best. Too hot and the outside colors before the interior sets; too cool and the slices soak up butter and go greasy.
- FatButter alone browns fast at griddle heat. A little neutral oil with the butter keeps the milk solids from burning between batches.
- YieldOne egg and a cup of milk will coat roughly six slices, enough for two or three people. Serve at once with sugar, preserves or syrup.
French toast is far older than its English name, and versions of it appear in medieval and early-modern European cookery as a way of reviving stale bread in egg and milk before frying. Older English cookbooks call much the same thing "pain perdu" (lost bread) or "poor knights." The optional sugar here is a reminder that at this period the dish could be eaten plain with butter as readily as sweetened.