I’ve found there are three camps in the world of preferred breakfast treat breads. There’s the Pancake Camp. Delicious and fluffy! The Waffle Camp. Crispy nooks to cradle butter and syrup! And then there’s the French Toast Camp. Crispy outside with a creamy custard interior!! French toast is the superior choice in my book.
I’d love to tell you that it’s the creamy custard interior that secures the blue ribbon for me. But to be real with you, it’s the frugal nature of turning stale bread into a luscious breakfast treat. Even better, I have a hack that I use to reduce the number of ingredients necessary to create a delicious breakfast:
Coffee Creamer.
Yep, that’s right. In place of the milk, I use a flavored coffee creamer when making the custard for the bread to soak in. Since it’s already sweetened and has a flavor, no sugar or vanilla is necessary. Now this does work on the assumption that you have a liquid coffee creamer in your house. But I almost always do. So when family and friends come to visit, they aren’t making sad faces at the inside of their coffee mugs. Just in case you don’t happen to have coffee creamer in your fridge, I’ll leave alternative directions in the recipe notes.
Today’s batch is brought to you by this fantastic find on the discount bakery rack:
At that price, I’m absolutely gonna have some French toast. And regular toast. And homemade croutons. And bread crumbs for meatloaf. And garlic toast with my spaghetti. Ahem. Point is, there are a lot of options available when you manage to find a great deal like this at the store.
Cinnamon-Hazelnut French Toast
Course: BreakfastCuisine: HomestyleDifficulty: Easy1
servings2
minutes6
minutesIngredients
3 slices of bread, preferably stale
2 eggs
1/4 cup hazelnut coffee creamer
dash of cinnamon, more if you like it!
smidge of butter, to grease pan
topping of choice (syrup, jam, powdered sugar, fruit compote, etc)
Directions
- In a shallow bowl with a flat bottom, whisk eggs together until combined.
- Add creamer and cinnamon to eggs, whisk to combine. Cinnamon might float on top.
- Heat a medium skillet over a medium to medium-low heat, then melt butter in pan.
- While pan and butter are heating, dip bread on both sides in the egg mixture, aka the custard. Ideally, you want to let the bread sit in the mixture until it’s soaked up the custard, without falling apart when lifted.
- Add saturated bread to skillet and cook until crispy and toasty on first side, approximately 2-3 minutes. Flip bread and cook an additional 2-3 minutes until other side is also crisp.
- Sprinkle with more cinnamon, if desired. Add your preferred topping, though it’s delicious enough it doesn’t need them. Enjoy!
Recipe Video
Notes
- If you don’t have a “fancy” bread like a French or Italian loaf, regular sandwich bread will work just fine. Heavily seeded breads and potato bread seem to struggle with absorbing the custard, so give those a pass.
- Stale bread is the ideal choice here. It doesn’t have to be bone dry, but you don’t want something fresh from the oven that morning. Fresher bread will just disintegrate if left to soak in the custard. (Although if that happens, throw it in a baking dish and make bread pudding for breakfast!)
- If you don’t have coffee creamer, you can substitute 2 tablespoons of milk, a teaspoon of sugar, and a tiny splash of hazelnut (or vanilla or almond) extract per egg being used for custard. The sugar is optional if you plan to top with syrup and are watching your sugar intake. Omitting it can potentially impact the toasty brown color of the final result.
- If you’re going the milk substitution route, you can also use a flavored coffee syrup in place of the sugar and extract, if you have that around.
- The recipe lists three slices of bread per every two eggs used. I’ve found that to be the most consistent ratio that uses up the egg mixture without waste. Your mileage may vary, based on the type of bread used, how thick it’s cut, and how stale it happens to be.
- If your cinnamon floats on top of your custard and only seems to like the first piece of bread you dunk, feel free to leave it out of the custard and sprinkle on the cooked toast, for a more even and equitable distribution.
