My Classic French Toast

This is a personal recipe to me, and fittingly I wanted it to be the very first recipe I post on my website, as it was the first dish I can remember making myself. Growing up, I loved watching my grandparents cook and bake, and when I was around 5 years old, I asked my grandfather if I could try making his French Toast for them for once. I had to use a stepstool just to see over the stove well enough to cook, but they seemed to really like how I made it.

Enter the controversy: I made my French Toast with a dash of ginger. When my grandfather asked me why I added ginger, I said it was because I had seen him use it. He swears he never used ginger before, and I swore up and down he did. This has become one of the biggest mysteries of my life… did he use it once by accident, or did I just remember wrong? There’s never been a definitive answer. Sadly, my grandfather passed away in 1994, but every single time I make French Toast, I still add a dash of ginger and think about him.

What makes French Toast such an interesting dish is that it really is an old, classical dish. One of the earliest mentions of this recipe is from a 4th century Roman cookbook where it was called Pan Dulcis. It took bread, broken up and crust removed, mixed it with milk and beaten eggs, and fried it in oil. Topped with honey it was a sweet dish to the Romans. Versions of French Toast are made all over the world and are incredibly varied. The main theme is almost always stale bread mixed with a milk and egg batter and fried with butter or oil. Sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, sometimes a straight up dessert, French Toast is loved all over the world no matter what their name for it is locally.

French Toast Ingredients

• Bread – I’ll list a few popular options below, just in keep in mind that whatever bread you choose, you’ll want it to be a little stale. This is what lets the bread soak up the custard mixture without becoming soggy and undercooked in the middle.
• Milk – The creamier the better with the milk, but I always use whatever I have on-hand, which is usually 1-2% milk. You could make this with any milk or cream, or even a milk alternative like almond or oat milk, though I wouldn’t recommend skim milk unless you mix it with a creamer.
• Eggs – I always use fresh, large eggs for French Toast.
• Sugar – Some recipes use a decent amount of sugar; I tend to use a teaspoon at the most within my batter. Feel free to use sugar alternatives as well.
• Flavoring – To make a classic French Toast, the above ingredients are all you really need, or you could omit the sugar and season with salt and pepper for a savory version as well. I like to pump up my flavorings though and I include vanilla extract, a dash of ginger powder, a pinch of nutmeg, and a decent amount of cinnamon. I use about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in this recipe, but you’re welcome to use more or less depending on the level of cinnamon you like to taste in yours.

Popular Bread Choices for French Toast

• Brioche
• Sourdough
• Texas Toast – makes a good restaurant style French Toast
• Challah – very flavorful and eggy taste
• French bread or baguette – best choice for pain perdu
• Sandwich Bread

I use sandwich bread for this recipe, because it’s what most people will have on-hand already. This is also much thinner bread than every other option, so you don’t want to soak it in the custard mixture, just dip it quickly or it can fall apart on you quickly. I recommend leaving the bread out uncovered for at least 30 minutes to an hour before you cook. If you plan on making French Toast the next morning for breakfast, you can simply leave some bread sitting out overnight as well.

How to Make French Toast

1. Place all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl or a baking dish and whisk until well combined. In the pictures, I used a glass baking dish since it’s deep enough to combine everything and works great for dipping the bread.
2. Preheat a skillet or electric griddle to medium heat and melt some butter.
3. Dip the sandwich bread into the batter and quickly flip to coat both sides. I usually flip it over two more times and transfer to the skillet before it becomes soggy.
4. Cook without moving 2-3 minutes and then flip once the bottom looks a good golden-brown color. Cook another 2-3 minutes until done.
5. Serve immediately with your favorite toppings like maple syrup, butter, powdered sugar, fruit, etc. Or place in a warm oven while finishing the whole batch.

A Ratio for Making French Toast

A quick glance at a dozen or so recipes for French Toast will show that there’s very little consensus when it comes to how much milk and eggs and bread slices are used for making this dish, it’s literally all over the map. I’ve found this ratio works well however, and is what I recommend:

1 egg per 2 slices of bread

¼ cup milk per 2 eggs

In this recipe I use 8 slices of bread, so 4 eggs, and a ½ cup of milk. This makes scaling the recipe easy. If you’re using a thicker, more artisan style of bread like brioche or challah though, I would up the milk from a ¼ cup to ⅓ cup because they will need to soak in the batter and not just be flipped quickly through it.

📋 Recipe