Only the Best for Mom – Brioche French Toast

For Mother’s Day, my brother decided to make my mom french toast. Wait before you dismiss this as just a regular old french toast recipe (like I did). The little details of this recipe really make this french toast better than any you’ve ever had.

My friend Rachel, who spent a year studying in France, once told me that french toast is actually the French dish, pain perdu or “lost bread.” People would soak their undesirable, old, hard bread in the egg/milk mixture to recover the moistness that it had already lost. However, American culture has transformed pain perdu into one of the most desirable breakfast dishes. So attractive that we no longer use old bread, but instead fresh bread, defeating the original purpose of the dish and often times making a soggy french toast. But this recipe helps to remedy that by toasting the bread before soaking it. This made a big difference as did the type of bread used. Challah is suggested, but we used brioche, which resulted in a rich, buttery french toast that was absolutely delicious. However, I had to stop eating after one piece of toast due to its richness.

My brother had the brillant idea of adding macerated mixed berries to the dish, which helped cut some of the rich flavor of the toast. By adding sugar to the fruit, you create a concentration gradient, with a higher concentration of sugar outside of the fruit than inside the fruit. As a result, the fruit release its juices to achieve chemical equilibrium. Being a chemical engineering student, I love it when I can explain real-life phenomena using concepts I’ve learned in school. 😀 Anyways, getting back to the food, the macerated berries were delicious and add a nice touch to the already amazing french toast.

This french toast was a great dish to make for our mom for Mother’s Day. But don’t wait for a special day like that to try it out. It’s a great and easy recipe that will make you feel like you’re eating brunch at a fancy bistro instead of at home.

Note: This recipe comes from America’s Test Kitchen. Unfortunately, they don’t post the recipe online unless you have a subscription, but you can watch how to make it here.

This post has been Yeastspotted.