French Toast

This is one of our favorite breakfast treats.  But this has not always been the case.  My aversion to wet bread extended to french toasts.  Bread dipped in coffee, soggy bread, bread chewed and not swallowed immediately... yuck! eww! I just don't like it.    Plus with french toasts, it's probably a case of right food at the wrong place.  Because after my tastebuds matured, and I got to try it again, I don't dislike it anymore.  I've made it a few times in the past because Naddy kept asking for it.  I made it with the usual eggs, milk and sugar.  It was ok.  Nothing to be proud of.  But last week, as I was walking to the grocery store at the ground floor of our apartment, I walked past Fairwood Restaurant, and turned around to browse at the afternoon tea offering.  That's the trouble with going out with a hungry tummy.  Your tummy makes the decisions for you.  So the tummy ordered thick toast with condensed milk and milk tea.  Oh yum, said the hungry tummy.  It wasn't soggy at all.  And thick bread!  Thick slices of bread, they're what you need, said the tummy.   Enough of the grumbling, tummy. I heard you.  

Now that I'm convinced that the thick slices of bread will give me the elusive french toast victory, I have to find the wow recipe.  Something that requires more than eggs, sugar and milk.   Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it just didn't give me the thrill in the past.  I saw a fairly long recipe from Martha's website, and the list sounded tasty to me.  For three thick slices of bread, I needed:

3 eggs

3/4 cups of milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/2 tablespoon sugar

zest of 1 lime

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg 

pinch of salt

Just whisk them all together and soak the bread.  I didn't follow the Martha's recipe to the letter, just used whatever I had.  I didn't need to soak the bread for 10 minutes either.  I fried the eggy bread in 1:1 ratio of butter and oil, browning both sides.   I topped it with caramelized bananas drizzled with a little chocolate syrup.  I also added some sausages to complete the plate and to balance the sweetness of the bananas and the maple syrup that bathed our toasties.  

The verdict? Thick slices of bread clinched the victory.  It was custardy but not wet or soggy.  It didn't taste eggy and it was well-balanced.  You don't really taste the lime, cinnamon and nutmeg.  I think they did their thing to neutralize the main ingredients.  I refrigerated the leftovers and had it for dessert and it's still good.  This is now "my" french toast recipe.