French toast with Sumbawan honey. (Photo courtesy of Petty Elliot)
For a late breakfast, you’ll want to surprise your loved one with something unusual, delicious and easy to make.
French toast, despite its expensive-sounding name, is actually a practical dish, created to recycle an old loaf of bread into a delicious dessert. These days it is common to enjoy French toast at breakfast in many countries. As well as the rather more homely “eggy bread,” the simple dish is also known in French as pain perdu , and in old English as “poor knights of Windsor.”
Its classic recipes were very simple: day-old bread soaked in milk and cream, coated with eggs, then pan-fried with butter and served with honey or sprinkled with sugar. However, times changed and many varieties of French toast now exist, from many different countries. When it is served as a sweet dish, cinnamon or vanilla and sugar are usually added before it is served with fresh fruits such as berries, banana, pineapple or jam, and of course, cream. As a savory dish, it is normally pan-fried with a pinch of salt and served with mayonnaise, bacon, smoked beef or cheese sauce.
It is important to soak the bread in milk or cream, or both, first to prevent the dominant, eggy flavor. The egg is simply used to coat the bread before cooking.
For this week’s recipe, I have prepared French toast with Sumbawa honey and locally grown raspberry. It is easy to make and irresistible. Enjoy!
French toast with Sumbawa honey and raspberries
It is important to use good quality, several-days-old white bread. The orange zest and raspberry will give a zing and neutralize the richness of the butter and cream. You may replace the raspberry with banana if you like. Serves two
Ingredients
2-4 slices of good quality, white bread, 2cm think; 80gr fresh raspberry; Sumbawa honey to serve; 50ml cream and 50ml full cream milk; 1 tablespoon sugar.
For the egg mixture: half of orange zest; half a vanilla pod, cut lengthwise and seeds scraped; 2 eggs, 40gr butter; 1 tablespoon of flour.
Directions:
1.Melt 20gr butter and set aside.
2.Beat the eggs in a bowl and strain into a wide, shallow bowl; then whisk in the melted butter. Add orange zest and vanilla pod.
3.Stir 2 tablespoons of egg mixture into a tablespoon of flour to make batter; then strain back into the egg mixture; mix well and set aside.
4.Mix cream and milk in an additional, wide and shallow bowl; add sugar and mix well.
5.Cut the edges of the bread to form a square shape. Keep the crust for other purposes; you may place them to the oven and ground them to make homemade bread crumbs.
6.Heat the remaining butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Meanwhile, soak the bread in the cream and milk mixture for about 20 seconds until soft, but not floppy. Transfer the bread into the egg mixture, but make sure to simply coat the bread with the mixture.
7.Place each slice of bread in the hot pan and allow them to cook undisturbed for about two minutes until golden and crisp. Repeat for the other sides, then place each piece of bread on serving plates.
8.Drizzle the slices with Sumbawa honey and add fresh raspberry; serve immediately with your favorite tea or coffee.
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