Fried French Toast

I came up with this recipe sometime during my second year of grad school and it became a part of my weekly Saturday morning ritual. The ritual involved me watching a movie while I sat on my bedroom floor eating my fried French toast, washing it down of course with a tall glass of cold raw milk. Then I would eventually face the inevitable and go back to campus and work in the lab.

The invention of Fried French Toast was initially triggered by my never ending quest for increasing functionality while fostering laziness without sacrificing yumminess. It’s a very fine line to walk, but one I find worth walking. One morning I had been using homemade bread to make French toast and it was taking forever to soak up the egg mixture. To remedy this, I ripped up the bread to increase the surface area, thus speeding the egg soaking phase. Since I use a cast iron pan, I needed to increasing the amount of oil in the pan to prevent sticking. The combination of increasing the surface area of the bread and adding more oil inadvertently satisfied my love for crispy fried food. One time I was feeling frisky so I added a ripe banana to the mixture before I fried up and I was not sorry.

Ingredients:

• Bread
• Eggs
• Milk or Cream
• Vanilla
• Spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger
• Pinch of sea salt
• Butter and/or Coconut oil
• Banana (optional)
• Roasted almonds or pecans (optional)

Beat eggs and add in milk, vanilla, spices and salt (just a quick reference I probably use about 1-2 tablespoons of milk for every egg and slice of bread). Tear up or slice bread into pieces then add them to the egg mixture and let it soak for about 2-5 minutes. Heat cast iron pan slowly to med-high. Coat the pan generously with coconut oil or butter to prevent sticking and to get everything nice and crispy. Then add the soaked bread mixture to the pan and start frying. I like to top with real maple syrup and some roasted almonds or pecans.