Ultimate French Toast | Jamie Oliver

I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful twist on French toast. This could be the most amazing breakfast, brunch, even a dessert if you put a little scoop of ice cream with it. It's a real treat and I think it's a beautiful thing to do for someone you love. So we're going sweet. I'm putting combos of flavours together that I think work really, really well. Let's start off with the basics. We're going to get our egg that I can't get out of the box and crack that into a bowl. I'll put two eggs in. Lovely free range eggs. Look at the colour of those yolks. So into those eggs, a little thimble of vanilla extract and a tiny pinch of cinnamon. Whisk that up and that is basically your kind of sweetened, flavoured base. And of course I'm going to use, you know, just regular bread but you could use brioche, you could use croissants, panettone. All of these make the most amazing French toast. The great thing about the bread of course is it sucks up that beautiful, vanilla-y egg. So into here we'll go in with the bread and just press it down. You can see it all absorbing into it. It becomes part of it. Right into the corners. Then I'm going to go in with the chocolate. Now look, you can have fun with the chocolate. So my wife absolutely loves chocolate. It's her thing. We're going to go in with her favourite chocolate, sort of 70% cocoa solid. Just a few little clicks. That'll melt and be beautiful. So let the bread suck it all up. The chocolate's in there. Just press that down. Okay, so whilst that soaks up all the lovely egg, I'm going to take a little knob of butter and that goes into the pan. And then I want to kind of bring it together with more exciting things. Banana is one of the things. If we get it in that pan, we can caramelise up this banana to be really delicious. So what I'll do is I'll just cut the banana in half lengthwise like this. So just put the banana on the butter and we're just going to fry it for a couple of minutes on each side. And it's going to intensify the flavour and it kind of goes like really toffee like. Really unctuous, really scrumptious and it's amazing. You're going to love it. And definitely those occasions like Mother's Day, birthdays, you know, Valentine's Day. I do try and get my missus to stay in bed and I do breakfast in bed. So look, as these fry up, which is lovely, I'm just going to toast some nuts. You can use almonds, you can use peanuts. I love hazelnuts. They're such beautiful nuts. So just toast your hazelnuts until lightly golden. That will make them taste so much better. And then I'll pound them up in a pestle and mortar and that will be a beautiful sprinkle. So a little bit of butter in the pan and then in with the French toast. So I've got this pan on a medium high heat. So I'm getting a nice bit of colour on those beautiful bananas and that French toast we want to go nice and golden. I'm just going to take these little hazelnuts and I'll let them cool down a little bit. So time to turn over the toast. Look at that. And of course we want to get it lightly golden. You know, kind of crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. We want the chocolate to melt so it just oozes. And then I've got a little trick that I think you're going to love. Let's turn over the banana. Look at that. Sizzling away. So after about four or so minutes, we've got really nice golden colour on the banana. The French toast is looking good. A little cheat that I love, if you've got some icing sugar, just shake a little bit over the French toast. What you can do is create the most incredible crunchy outer crust just by flipping it back onto that side. So in literally one minute, you can see the smoke coming off there. You would have caramelised the icing sugar. Have a look at this. And when that cools down a little bit, it'll go crunch. So crispy outside, fluffy inside, oozy chocolate, caramelised banana. Come on, this is going to be the best breakfast brunch ever. Right, let's plate up. So I like to serve this with a little bit of Greek yoghurt. Nice little dollop in the middle like that, followed by a lovely banana. That little bit of cooking completely changes the banana. Maybe a little bit of yoghurt on the top like that. If you wanted a little pinch of cinnamon, that's cool. If you want to take those beautiful hazelnuts, just pound those up. Some chunky, some fine, but the flavour will be amazing. And I'll sprinkle some of that over the top like that. Then the French toast is done. So let the French toast cool down. Don't be tempted to touch the caramel. It's very, very hot. Right, let's get in there. Let's have a little look. And just look at that. Oozing. That is the most extraordinary, indulgent, fantastical start to the day. Right, got to try. Let's go for some of the banana, hazelnut. Mmm, so good. I'm getting the vanilla as well, which is really, really nice. Crunchy, spongy, oozy. Absolutely delicious. So go on, have a go at that recipe guys and enjoy. Take care.