Gemma shares her favorite recipe for delicious French toast

Hi Bold Bakers, I love French toast when you get it in a restaurant and it's really thick and then soft on the inside, would you ever try to make it at home and you don't get the same results? Well I am going to share with you some tricks of the trade that you can make the ultimate French toast every time. So what I want you to do after this video is head over to BiggerBolderBaking.com, get the recipe, go into the kitchen and whip yourself up some French toast. So let's talk bread, now this is very important when it comes to your French toast, you want pick thick bread, you can use a Texas toast, I have brioche here which is lovely and buttery, you can use challah, just whatever you use make sure that it's nice and thick so it soaks up all of that custard. So French toast is a very decadent dish so what I like to do just to go above and beyond is butter each slice of bread on both sides. This will make it nice and crispy and brown. So for French toast it actually helps if your bread is a little bit stale, maybe a day or too old, it will soak up the custard so much better. So that's our bread, now let's talk custard. You want to start out in a nice wide dish because you're gonna have to put your bread in there. Now we're gonna mix up all of our ingredients. First things first are our eggs. So we're gonna put some whole eggs in there, and then here's my secret ingredient, some egg yolks. Now what this does, it creates kind of an eggier custard, you know the way you have like a creme brulee or creme anglaise, this is what we're creating in this dish. So that's that. Next we are going to add in some cream. Now you can use all-purpose cream, that's totally fine, if you don't have cream you can use half and half, and you can use milk as well but cream just gives that extra level of richness. Now into this we're just gonna add a little bit of sugar for some sweetness, and then we're gonna add in a little bit of cinnamon, this just gives lovely warmth to the dish. So the next thing I'm gonna add in is some vanilla extract, now this just adds lovely flavor to your French toast. So in you go, and then with a whisk, just bring it all together. This is a super simple custard, this dish could not be easier. I remember when I was young in Ireland and my mom would whip up French toast for us and we just thought she was some sort of culinary wizard. Okay so we have our custard, our bread is ready to go, now it's time to soak it. So I'm gonna share with you a little chef secret that you might not know. In restaurants they soak their French toast for maybe an hour, two hours, even overnight in the custard. So the next day then when you order it, it is thick and it is moist and it's just absolutely delicious. we're going to do, but we're actually going to only soak ours for half an hour. So what you want to do is take your bread, lay it into your custard, and let it sit there for 15 minutes. And then once the 15 minutes is up, turn it over and let it soak up on the other side. In my opinion, the real key to ultimate French toast is the soakage. You want really good soakage. That's why I like to leave mine for as long as I can. Okay so it's been half an hour, my bread has soaked all the way through, it is heavy with with custard which is exactly what I want, now it is time to fry them off. So in a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium to low heat, we're gonna add in some butter. Now the butter is just gonna help the French toast not to stick but of course butter just makes everything taste better so why not. And then when the butter starts to bubble and you've got nice heat in your pan, add in your French toast. Now just let your French toast sit there by itself, don't move it, let it cook for around three minutes or so until it gets golden brown on one side. Once it's lovely golden brown on one side, go ahead, flip it over, and then just cook it for another minute or two on that side until that's also golden brown. So our French toast is looking rockstar, but the very last thing we're going to do is pop it into the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, or 200 degrees Celsius, for roughly 7-10 minutes just to make sure that the egg is cooked the whole way through. So finally the wait is over, when the French toast comes out of the oven, it is ready to be plated. So you probably know this about me already, but I'm pretty generous with my portions, So I'm gonna put three thick slices of French toast, one on top of the other, to create a mammoth stack of French toast. For a little extra sweetness, I love to add some fruit to it, so there's some strawberries, and a few fresh blueberries. Then of course, we need this guy, maple syrup, and a lot of it. So be super generous with this, just keep going. I love my French toast to be drenched in maple syrup. Fantastic. Okay, so now come here to me because I want you to see why I'm saying this is the ultimate recipe. Check that out. See how thick that is? And the custard has soaked all the way through. This is French Toast perfection. Okay? Time to enjoy! Mm-mm-mm! This definitely deserves a happy dance. I love this recipe, mmm! This French Toast is thick, crispy on the outside, and soft in the middle. It is the perfect way to start a big and bold day. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I'll see you back here really soon for more bigger, Bolder Baking.