Holiday French Toast

I’ve said on here before that when it comes to breakfast carbs, there are typically three ‘teams’:

Team Pancakes, Team Waffles, and Team French Toast.

Which one do you all of you belong to?

If you would’ve asked me the same question a few years ago, my answer would’ve been Team Pancakes, hands down, no competition.

However, recently, I’ve started to incorporate more variety into our Brinner (Breakfast for dinner) nights, and experiment with other options than just pancakes. I’ve liked how those experiments have turned out–really, REALLY liked them. Not so much to where they’ve de-throned pancakes as my #1 preference, but enough to where I’m tending to more regularly incorporate them into the cooking rotation in my kitchen–which says a lot.

I like French Toast, but it isn’t something I’ve made very often. Pancakes may edge them out for me in terms of taste, but there’s certainly no beating them when it comes to convenience. Pancakes, and waffles, are inevitably more time consuming where you have to make a batter from scratch. With French Toast, all you have to do is dunk some pre-made bread into an eggy dairy liquid, throw it on the griddle, and within minutes, you’re done.

Pretty awesome.

We recently had some guests staying over the holidays, and I had to make a brinner big enough to feed everybody. COULD I have whipped up a super-size batch of pancakes or waffles?

Sure. I COULD have. I just….didn’t feel like it. I wanted a simpler/faster option.

But then I got to thinking: what if instead of pancakes or waffles, I went with French Toast instead?

This was also around the time that I was planning out recipes to make for this year’s 12 Days of Christmas, and so my mind was already geared towards putting holiday ‘twists’ on ‘staple-recipes’. Our pantry/fridge also had a number of holiday-themed products that I had been wanting to incorporate into the series.

Considered together, those factors created an ideal situation for me to be able to create today’s recipe: Holiday French Toast.

Don’t let the twist on the name fool you: this is still a ridiculously simple recipe to make, and truthfully, I didn’t have to make very many ‘modifications’ at all. There are two chief changes: first, instead of half-and-half or milk as the liquid base of the recipe, I’m recommending that you use a Holiday-Themed/Flavored liquid coffee creamer. There are so many out there to choose from, an honestly, there is no ‘wrong’ one to choose. The critical element is the fat and moisture that gets combined with the eggs to make the toast fluffy/eggy, and coffee creamer will deliver on that.Another change that I made to the original recipe was to add just a tad bit more holiday-centric spices, just to cut through some of the sweetness of the creamer and give it more of a kick.

You guys, this could not be easier to make. The recipe is for two LOAVES of bread, and if you make them on a flat-top griddle you will still probably be done in 45 minutes; that’s how little time it takes for the toast to cook.

It was just the way I like my French Toast: a golden brown crust on the outside/rims, and soft and fluffy on the inside. Even better, they keep EXTREMELY well in the fridge and they also make excellent breakfast sandwiches when they’re toasted.

Stay tune for more recipes in this year’s 12 Days of Christmas!

Day 1: Browned Butter & Sweet Potato Biscuits

Day 2: Biscoff Dipped Butter Cookies

Day 3: Holiday French Toast

Holiday French Toast

Recipe Adapted from a Prevous Recipe on Cooking is My Sport

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups Holiday flavored Coffee Creamer (Gingerbread, Sugar Cookie, Cinnamon, or Pumpkin Spice will all work well)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 loaves of thickly sliced bread (like Challah, Brioche Texas Toast, or English Muffin Toasting Bread), FROZEN (I leave mind in the freezer overnight before cooking the French Toast)

Directions

In a shallow dish (large enough to fit about 2 slices) whisk together the eggs, creamer, salt, nutmeg, ginger and vanilla until smooth but not foamy.

Place the butter and oil in a heavy skillet and set it over medium heat. Don’t let it get too hot; if it starts to smoke, it means that it’s too hot and your toast will cook too quickly.

Place 2 pieces of the bread in the soaking dish, turn them over, and turn them over once more. It should take about 15 seconds, total; you want the bread to absorb the liquid, but not be too soaked/saturated.

Place the bread in the preheated skillet and fry it for 3 minutes before turning. It should be golden brown before you turn it—if it isn’t, you can SLIGHTLY raise the heat. Fry on the second side for about 2 minutes. Transfer it to the rack rimmed baking sheet and keep it in the oven while you finish frying the rest of the bread.

Once it’s all done, dust it with powdered sugar and serve with syrup.