French Toast 2 Ways: Sheet-Pan vs. Soufflé | Melissa Clark | NYT Cooking

Wait, it's the morning we've used up all our caffeine. I mean, I actually did. I have no excuse. Hi, I'm Melissa Clark and I'm here at the nyt

cooking

kitchen Studio to bring you another episode of today's Short Cut versus Showtopper The Brunch Edition. I'm going to go through two complete brunch meals, one simple, easy but incredibly delicious and one spectacular, a little more difficult and time-consuming, but you'll learn some techniques along the way and give your friends and family a blast . The food for me, honestly, brunch is bagels and locks like if I don't cook brunch, I order brunch, brunch comes to me, I put it all on trays, that's my ideal brunch, but I have to tell you that my family likes it a lot everything, like bacon.

French

toast

is your go-to brunch, so sometimes we make bagels and padlocks and sometimes I make French

toast

. I mean, French toast is great, plus it has to have bacon, and since I'm a mom, I have to eat fruit salad. So to me, that's the ideal brunch if we don't eat bagels and it blocks the abbreviated breakfast menu. It's my favorite French toast recipe. It's brown sugar French toast, so the French toast is the star of the menu and then the bacon, of course. Really easy baking

sheet

bacon, just place the bacon on a baking

sheet

and throw it in the oven along with the French toast at the same temperature so everything is ready at the same time and while it's

cooking

you can make a big fruit salad and pleasant. and I've flavored my fruit salad with lemon and cardamom and a little sugar just to give it that extra special touch.

It's brunch. It's not just a fruit plate. It's a special feeling. The joy of a skillet for this recipe is that it makes. a lot, you can make this whole loaf in one go, which is great so you don't have to stand in front of the stove cooking your French toast, so I'm going to cut the loaf pretty thick. You know, the ideal thing for French toast is stale bread. but I never have stale bread, do you have stale bread? I feel like most of us don't have stale bread, but if you plan ahead, buy your bread a few days before and leave it on the counter unwrapped and let it get stale because What that does is it lets the moisture in the bread evaporates and there is more room for the custard.

However, I will tell you the truth. I never do it, so I know it works almost as well without them. I'm going to soak the bread in a tray. pan just because it all fits in one layer and that way it can absorb the cream quickly evenly, but if you don't have room in your refrigerator for a baking sheet, you can do it in a smaller bowl that you can do it in. like a 9 by 3, you just have to flip it, maybe a little longer to make sure the cream gets to all parts of the bread.

Yeah, look, a Hala bar cut into thick slices fits exactly in a pen, and honestly, all these little pieces of poor quality. You can do that to make the custard. I'm using whole eggs. All eggs whole. Sometimes if I want to make it a little richer, I'll use some extra yolks and you can do that. I mean, custard is really indulgent. it's not like a magic formula where you have to use so many eggs with so much milk and you want to beat the eggs before adding the milk to make it easier to incorporate the vanilla extract and the cinnamon, which I think is just cinnamon and brown sugar . just one of those old perfect combinations and salt, you can flavor it however you want, that's all.

I'm going to pour it right on top and put it in the refrigerator. The best French toast, I think it should be very saturated with custard and what you want to do is make it the night before and then it will be ready in the morning about halfway through soaking or at least an hour before you want to cook it, you just want to give it the return to all the pieces. so that they are absorbed on the other side so that you can see that the bread has absorbed all the custard or most of it and we are going to prepare the baking sheet so I am going to do the butter and brown sugar treatment it is so easy it is like a cheater candy but it really works well and you know what it is it's a candy this isn't even a candy it's a candy I like so much oops come back here I'm just a messy cook that's how I feel if you clean your own kitchen you can make a mess all you want, you can do this in a bowl, but when you do this in a bowl and then try to transfer it, it gets sticky and I find it harder to do.

I find it easier to do it this way. I mean, basically, the point is that you don't want too many bald spots. Any bald spot on this pan is French toast missing its topping. I do. I have to say that if you use more yolks than whites, you won't understand those runny strands as something to consider, so for the final cake, these final little pieces you should cut side down for maximum absorption of the caramel and all this brown sugar around. It's going to Bubble Up and make this delicious sauce that you're going to put on top, so we're going to do 375 and it'll be ready in 20 to 30 minutes.

Bacon, there are many

ways

to cook bacon and everything. of them are good, the reason I like Chic pan bacon is because you can make a lot in one go, you know you don't have to stand there frying it on the stove and it also gets very very crispy, it takes longer, but in the end, I like bacon that doesn't bend. I like to crush it and it should break apart. The key to making bacon in a skillet is that you should line your skillet with parchment or aluminum foil just for easy cleanup. Clean if you don't, it's just less of a headache, so cover your pan first.

I don't cook it on a rack. I've tried that some people like to cook the bacon in the oven and put a rack on it. I think leaving the bacon almost fried in its own melted fat gives you a better, more evenly cooked slice, but again, if you're using a rack and you like that, just keep doing what you're doing, you want to leave a little room. between them, the bacon will shrink, but it will cook more evenly and faster if you can spread it evenly. For one pound of bacon, you need two baking sheets. a pound of bacon because if you fill it up then it will actually take a lot longer to brown I feel like this isn't even a recipe this is like a hack it's a technique more than a recipe I guess my daughter and I really like that our bacon doesn't brown double, we like to lift it and it should be straight and completely crispy, fully cooked, my husband likes his bacon a little soft.

Here's another thing about when you make bacon on a baking sheet, the center pieces of bacon tend to cook more slowly than the parts on the edges of the pan because there is a little less heat there, so those pieces usually remain soft enough for Daniel and then the edges are crispy enough for us, so it all works. Here's another thing about bacon in the oven at any temperature, it doesn't matter what temperature your oven is set to, so if you're just making bacon, I personally like 400, sometimes I want to put other things in the oven and my bacon just has to go, the bacon just goes. go along for the ride, so if I have

french

toast there, no matter the temperature, I bake the

french

toast with bacon.

I'm happy with this recipe, I'm making 375 because it's the same temperature I'm going to bake the French toast at. Don't need fruit salad or brunch? Don't you need something like some fruit? It's just me as a mom when you're having brunch, especially if you're having French toast and bacon, you need fruit. you need brightness and juiciness to contrast with all the richness. I wanted it to be a little more than just fruit in a bowl, so I'm going to make a super simple lemon dressing. I have some sugar. using some ground cardamom, you can use any spice.

I love fruit and cardamom. I think it's a great combination and then the lemon juice, the acidity will dissolve, the sugar, mix it in a few minutes in advance, so I'm going. Letting this sit while I cut the fruit will give the acid a chance to dissolve everything. I mean, honestly, at this point you don't have to measure the air on the side that's a little bit sweet and then We can adjust it later, so we'll leave this here in case we need it, so it will hang. I'm going to cut the fruit. I think this amount of melon will probably be the right amount.

This is Daniel. The bacon is beautifully browned but soft, so I'm going to remove it, but I'll leave the other tray of bacon in the oven for people who like it crispy. In fact, I have it at home. I have a designated tray that really stays put. dish towel I use for bacon we make a lot of bacon if this was my house instead of the new kitchen kitchen studio I would save that I have a small jar and I keep the bacon grease in the refrigerator and I use it for things like really awesome to sauté and vegetables um I don't think we have one here a jar of bacon a jar of bacon grease maybe we should start one look even after today we're going to have enough to sauté some vegetables, sautéed spinach and greased bacon. delicious, okay, and this is the extra crispy bacon for bacon lovers, now it bends a little, but as it cools a little it will harden, that's my piece right on the edge, very dark brown, I love it, who wants some bacon, so the amazing menu is the French toast, but it's EX ra French toast instead of just being the classic slices of French toast.

I'm making a French toast casserole that is sued and puffed up and has lemon sugar and gronet and then lemon sugar on top, so it's that beautiful. puffy casserole we are also going to make delicious crispy candied bacon and then a gorgeous citrus salad with rosewater syrup, pistachios and dates. Now, since this is your spectacular brunch, we're going to add an extra layer of flavor to the French toast and this. It's actually a good idea in general for French toast if you have the time. If you want to toast the bread before you start soaking it, it caramelizes it and also removes some of the moisture.

The drier the bread is, the more easily it will absorb that cream. and the more cream it gets, we're going to toast this in a 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes. I'm going to make lemon sugar for this French toast, which is basically sugar with lemon zest and I'm going to mash it up. I come in and I'm going to enjoy the aromatherapy. This is a technique I learned from Dory Greenpan, which is amazing and just combines the lemon oil, so the oil from the citrus zest mixes with the sugar. Now mushing happens. This is so good.

It just smells really good and then I basically just rub it with my fingers and the sugar turns into the texture of wet sand, I probably build a little sand castle with it. Couldn't you not be wet enough? I'm going to save some for the topping, so I'm going to scoop out two tablespoons and then the rest will become the base of our custard. Everything else goes straight into the French toaster container, really, for any type of custard. You know, add extra yolks to the whole eggs, but for this one I'm using all whole eggs because it's an in-demand French toast.

I want the actual volume of the whites, so I want them in there, trust me, it's pretty rich. beat the eggs and crack them before adding the rest of the liquids it just makes it easier and they won't splatter as much so this is whole milk that heavy cream I mentioned yum yum it's like you know when a recipe has a lot flavor. cream is just going to be a party yeah heavy cream it's a really big whisk this is a lot bigger than my whisk at home it's like I feel like this is like a Kenji whisk you know actually even a smaller one would work that's yeah yeah yeah Mind you, this is in proportion to my overall size, this one fits me better, oh, perfect, so it's nice and warm, this is what you want, a nice light gold color, you don't even need to turn it over because look, it's toasted. the other side can cool while we finish making the custard, so I'm going to flavor this with a little bit of nutmeg and a little bit of garnet.

I'm going to use a tablespoon of ganier, so now what I'm going to do. What I have to do is just pour the cream on top of the bread to let it soak well, so I'm going to turn them over, now I put it in the refrigerator and then I'm going to turn it over in a couple of hours after that has absorbed much, but not all, of the liquid, we have our soaked Hala and this is a 2 quart saucepan and some melted butter. I'm just going to butter the inside of the dish, which encourages browning and does that. buttery and then I'm going to use half of my lemon sugar on the bottom of the dish and we're just going to fill the dish with our soaked Hala, this is all lemon zest and I'm just going to spread it on the top because I want you to bake it at 350 for 50 to 60 minutes and then halfway through I'll add the rest of the sugar on top and that way when it comes out of the Ed it'll be a little bit crispy so how can you make the bacon better?

I mean, there's no way to improve bacon, it's just a perfect food, but itwe'll do a little bit, I don't know, we'll just add a little bit of Sparkle. our bacon making a sweet and spicy candied bacon, so I have brown sugar, light brown sugar, I have a little bit of cayenne, I'm just going to mix them together, you want it to be even because you don't want any hot spots in your bacon, so like we did before, I'm just going to place the bacon on the baking sheet. This is a slightly thicker cut in the bacon, so it will need a little more time in the oven.

I'm going to sprinkle this on top of the bacon and use it all up and try to distribute it evenly. There are so many different

ways

to make candied bacon. I've seen recipes that use maple syrup and mustard instead of brown sugar and cayenne and that's great too, maple sugar is great, you can add other spices if you don't want it spicy, say you want it spicy, like sweet spicy , you can add cinnamon, you can add nutmeg. Well, for this recipe again, it's very forgiving between, say, 325 and 425, just watch it carefully and take it out when it's ready for this batch, we're going to do 350 because that's the temperature we're going to bake our French toast at.

Do you make a fruit salad on top? So I decided what I wanted to do was make a beautiful citrus salad with all these different textures and flavors. It has a fountain of roses. Demera simple syrup. Chewy dates and then crunchy pistachios on top and a little. a little bit of mint just to make the color pop honestly, also when you use things like blood oranges, tangerines and grapefruits all together, it's so beautiful it's absolutely spectacular, so we'll start with the syrup. Dem uncommon sugar and water in equal measure. and this makes a liquid syrup, um, not too sweet and not too thick, it will be perfect for the fruit.

In fact, we always have Demara sugar syrup in our refrigerator. It's like a common item in our home refrigerator because we use it in cocktails. instead of normal sugar syrup, just add that little thing, it's okay, the sugar dissolves, you can see from the bottom, there are no sugar crystals left, so the rose water is potent, you have to go slow when you add it, If you're curious about rose water, start with half a teaspoon, this is a tablespoon so I'm going to use about half. If you're not a rosewater person, you can flavor the simple syrup with vanilla.

Oh, a cinnamon stick would be really good or a couple of cloves. or some cardamom pods, you have many options to flavor this. Now it's perfect. Some people don't like rose water because it smells like their grandmother's perfume, but my grandmother didn't wear rose perfume, so I'm fine and then just transferring it here so it's easier to spray on top of my fruit salad, okay, to make the citrus, cut the piff and then we're going to cut the citrus into rounds. You can really use any type of citrus for this salad. The key However, I think you should always have a combination of oranges or grapefruits that you cut into rounds and then tangerines that you cut into wedges to have different textures, okay, now I'm going to cut them into thin slices that you want thin here so they're easier to eat, get rid of the seeds as you go, no one wants citrus seeds, don't worry if they fall apart, by the way, it doesn't matter, sorry, the bacon was calling, you can smell it, you know when you start to smell that irresistible aroma of bacon, it's time to go check your bacon, one pan is ready, this one is ready, the other needs a couple more minutes, which gives us plenty of time for the fruit salad, yes, bacon can hold on, this is the thing about bacon, it's super forgiving.

If it's ready before serving, let it hang and then put it back in the oven. If you want to heat it up a little, it could be the perfect meal. Look at that awesome one. Yeah. I mean, the key here is the different shapes because that's what makes it look so pretty, you don't want to cut them too thin, you want them to chew a little bit, so pistachios, do you want the raw pistachios because I want the color bright, you know, the toasted ones? They are very good salty roasts as a snack, but for baking and desserts the raw ones are where they are and then all the syrup you want, I'm just going to use a little bit and a little bit of grapefruit with flaky sea salt. and salt is the best combination, not too much, just a little bit, a little bit of mint, so we just have to wait for the French toast to finish, which will be just a couple more minutes, and then we'll have brunch.

This is an impressive variety. I mean, come on, this is amazing, what's brunch without some champagne? I have classic mimosas, orange juice and champagne and then I have a little gift for the spectacular. I saved the rose demera syrup and we're adding it to the sparkling wine for a spectacular special brunch cocktail, so the nice thing about this brown sugar French toast is that you want to serve it flipped so the shiny side of the brown sugar is facing up salad of fruits and bacon. I can feel how creamy it is when I cut it. this I'm just using my hands because you know it's my house okay I'm going to start with the shortcut cheers french toast you don't need maple syrup on this this has everything you need.

I forgot to do this. but if you want, you can take some of the extra caramel bits from the bottom of the pan and spread them right on top and what I love about this is the softness of the Hala, the way it just soaks up all the custard, oh well, I mean , it's perfect, it tastes like cardamom, it tastes like lemon, it's not too sweet, it just has the right amount of sugar and it just cuts through the richness of French toast and you know, bacon and bacon are always good, this is a delicious brunch.

It wasn't that hard and now it's spectacular, so for lemon sule french toast I like a little lemon, try it first to see if you do, it may not be sweet enough, it doesn't need syrup, however, if you wanted to put maple syrup on it, I'm not going to say no, I love this and then just that little squeeze of lemon, that little bit of acidity brings out the lemon and the fruit salad, so good chewy dates. Rose flavored syrup but just a little bit it's a beautiful refreshing fruit salad and then sweet bacon it's like bacon but slightly better oh wow that's really good we just invented this on set for the first time I've never made this before this It is delicious.

I highly recommend it. The brunch edition is a shortcut versus a spectacular brunch. It's so much fun, everything is so good. I do not know which one I like better. I mean this one, you know, it's a little more complicated, a little more beautiful, a little more special, but this one. one is very good and you can serve it any weekend and everyone will be happy, so we salute you, happy rest of the day, happy brunch.