French toast brioche

French toast brioche is the perfect dish for lazy weekends when all you want is a nice brunch to start the day! In my recipe I will take you through on how to make the perfect French toast from scratch, using my brioche recipe, and how to garnish it so it will be the highlight of you day.

French toast brioche can be as simple as using up some leftover bread of your choice and some other simple ingredients you probably already have at home like eggs and milk. Or, you can do some prep and think about flavours, textures, colours on your plate. Whether you want to keep it simple or go all in, this French toast brioche recipe have it all, continue reading!

Jump to:

• What is French toast brioche?
• Some important notes regarding the INGREDIENTS of the French toast brioche
• How to make this recipe
• French toast brioche

What is French toast brioche?

French toast brioche is a dish made of sliced bread soaked in beaten eggs and typically milk, then pan fried. Alternative names and variants include "eggy bread", "Bombay toast" or "gypsy toast". French toast exists in a lot of counties and there are tons of variations across the world when it comes to how to make it, how to flavour it, what kind of bread to use and whether it is sweet or savoury.

This French toast brioche recipe will make the perfect brunch dish that is crispy and sweet outside and soft, melt in your mouth inside. It is sweet but balanced in sweetness with fruit and some mint leaves. I am using my homemade brioche to make the French toast, it is an absolute dream. Feel free to use my brioche recipe or any leftover bread you have at home right now.

Some important notes regarding the INGREDIENTS of the French toast brioche

1. Bread: You will need some bread to make French toast brioche and obviously the better quality the more delicious it will turn out. Today I am sharing with you a French toast recipe using my homemade brioche.
2. Butter: Use always unsalted as you want to be in control of the quantity of the salt. I am using 82% fat content butter in all my recipes. You will need butter to pan fry the toasts for this French toast recipe that makes the dish super creamy and buttery!
3. Sugar: A small amount of white granulated sugar is used while pan frying the toast that will caramelize on the bread slices
4. Milk: Use room temperature whole milk
5. Egg: Use Room temperature as always
6. Garnish: Fruits of your choice and honey

How to make this recipe

1. What bread to use to make French toast

While you can make French toast using any bread I really encourage using some good quality bread that is either sourdough, French baguette or some good quality homemade brioche. My homemade brioche recipe in here makes wonderful French toast and I can warmly recommend to try!

For this French toast recipe you will need to cut slices into not too thick, not too thin, about 1,5cm (0,6inch) in thickness.

French toast can be made with using fresh bread but it is also a great way to save leftover, dry bread.

2. How to make Crispy French toast

Making this homemade French toast recipe is super easy and can be perfectly manageable even if you are a beginner in the kitchen and have no knowledge of baking as such. It is a 3 steps process though, but don´t worry all of them are rather easy.

Before jumping into the steps, make sure you prepare the ingredients: slice bread, pour room temp milk into a large enough bowl, beat room temp eggs in another bowl. You should also prepare a baking tray with parchment paper and pre-heat oven to 190C /374F. Last, but not least, prepare a saucepan, butter and sugar.

1. Dip bread slices into milk then immediately into the egg. Make sure milk and egg covers all parts of the bread slice however make sure that bread slices don't get overly soggy. Best if you dip the bread slice with the help of a fork and do not leave the bread slice in for too long. Continue with all the bread slices

2. Frying: Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and once butter foaming (do not burn it) place bread slices into the saucepan then sprinkle with sugar. Fry for 2 minutes then turn it, sprinkle with sugar again and fry for another 2 minutes. Your bread slices might need more or less than 2 minutes, make sure you properly caramelize the bread with the sugar on both sides without burning it

3. Baking: Move bread slices onto the baking tray with parchment and bake for 8-10minutes. Baking will ensure that your French toast briochewill turn out crispy, not soggy

That´s it! As you can see making French toast from scratch at home is really easy and requires only minimal effort!

3. How to make French toast not soggy

One thing you have to be careful while making French toast is not making it soggy. Making it crispy is very easy actually, all you need to make sure is that while dipping bread slices into milk and egg you do it relatively quickly without making the bread overly wet.

Other important part of the recipe is the actual baking in the oven part that encourages the bread slices to become crispy outside and soft in the middle so make sure you do not skip this step.

4. What to serve French toast with

Once brioche bread is baked it is time to garnish!

French toast can be made in literally endless variations, however one thing I like to bear in mind is somewhat balancing the sweetness of the bread with something less sweet. I suggest to use any fruit you prefer eg. strawberries, blueberries, mango, peach etc. Nuts like toasted coconut, hazelnut, pistachio can be also a great idea or perhaps a scoop of cream, mascarpone or ice cream. Feel free to further decorate the plate with herbs like mint, basil, rosemary and finish with some syrup eg. honey.

Try also this cinnamon swirl bread from Catherine.