I had a strange relationship with french toast! I really did not know if I liked them or not! I do have really nice memories as kid, while I was spending some summers at my aunts summer house, where we were eating very often french toast as breakfast! At that time I loved them, but I did not have try french toast again since that time. Now, that I am a mom I like to have various breakfast options, so I decided to give french toast a try! As almost everyone does nowadays I searched on Pinterest about "french toast recipes" and I ended up with this great recipe from Cooking Classy. Cooking Classy's trick is to add a small amount of heavy cream along with the milk in the egg mixture for the french toasts, which gives them a "delicious richness" as she states. And that is true! And that is the reason why I chose to make her recipe! I have to make clear that Cooking Classy's recipe is amazing and that I was kept doing it for the past 2 years. Few weeks ago, I decided to make french toast as breakfast, after almost a year. I opened Cooking Classy's recipe but I was not reading the ingredients really careful and I mixed up the heavy cream with the milk, and used the opposite portions, i.e. more heavy cream and less milk. The result was super rich and moist french toasts that I could not stop eating!!!

The main ingredient for the french toasts is the bread. Traditionally the bread used is brioche, which is cut in thick slices (2 cm | 3/4 inch). However I use wheat sandwich bread slices, which I always have at home and buy every time at the grocery store. Feel free to use whatever bread you like and is easier for you to find. The rest ingredients for the french toast are really basic ingredients that we have anytime at home: eggs, cinnamon, milk, heavy cream, a pinch of sugar and vanilla extract plus some butter for the cooking. I have tried these french toasts only with whole milk and heavy cream with 35% fat. I guess that you can use low-fat milk and cream, with reducing a little bit the richness of the toasts, but still they should taste great plus with less calories!

Start by placing a non-stick pan on medium heat and let it heat well. This is the first step I always do when I want to make french toast or pancakes. The heat should be medium-low and not high. Moreover, if you are like me and you do not have this big electric non-stick griddle that lets you cook at the same time many toasts (or pancakes, or eggs etc) you can place 2 non-stick pans on heat and cook on both at the same time. This way you will save so much time cooking and almost all of your toasts will be ready in no time and all the family (or friends) can enjoy them warm at the same time!

Once my pan is on fire I start making the egg mixture. Bear in mind that the egg mixture can be made in advance the night before. Just store it in a airtight container in the refrigerator. The next morning, as soon as you are ready to cook the french toasts, just remove it from the refrigerator, give it a good whisk and it is ready for use!

I a shallow bowl or a small oven pan whisk well the eggs with the cinnamon. It is important to whisk and dissolve the eggs really good and not to have any cinnamon lumps into the mixture. For sure we do not want any scrambled eggs onto our cooked french toast!

Add the heavy cream, the milk, the vanilla extract and the sugar and whisk until fully incorporated.

Start with one bread slice at time: dip the bread slice in the egg mixture, press it gently on top to absorb as much as custard is possible. The time that the bread needs to soaked into the mixture, highly depends on the kind of bread you use. Moreover, according to this interesting article about french toast by Bon Appétit magazine, a common mistake is to under-soak the bread. This means that the bread is not supposed to quickly dipped into the custard before cooked, but it should let be soaked into the custard for at least 15'-20'. This way the center of the bread will be soft and custardy. I have to be honest, in the morning, when I want to make the breakfast for the whole family, I do not have time for soaking the bread 15'-20' into the custard. However, what I do is to soak the first slices as soon as the custard is ready and let them soak while the pan is heating and then as soon as I start cooking the first slices to let the second round of slices to soak into the custard, while the first round is being cooking. This means about 6' of soaking for each slice. For the kind of bread that I use, which is wheat sandwich slices bought from the grocery store, the result is really good! You may have to try and test with your first birst slices to find out the proper time of letting your bread to soak into the custard. If you are using a shallow bowl like me, let the one side soak and then flip over to let the second side soak.

Once the pan is hot enough wrap a small amount of butter (about 1 teaspoon) with a paper towel and rub the pan with it. This way you are greasing the pan with with just a small amount of butter. Transfer the soaked bread slice onto the pan and let cook the first side for 2'-3' until golden brown. Flip and let the second side to cook for 2' more until golden brown. The french toast is ready! Now you have to repeat with the next bread slices. Remove the french toast from the pan, clean any crumbles in the pan by using a clean paper towel, repeat greasing the pan and cook the next round of french toasts!

French toast is supposed to be served immediately after cooking, while it is still warm! I love to serve it with butter and honey! This totally lifts off the experience and creates a super comfort breakfast! They are super easy to make, and if you do the trick with multiple pans cooking at the same time, your french toasts will be ready in no time for the whole family or friends! Your kids will definitely love them and will ask you to make them again!! Give them a try and let me know!