Sous Vide French Toast
Speed - 97%
Simplicity - 100%
Tastiness - 99%
99%
Tasty!
These French toasts turned out perfect - extremely fluffy and flavorful inside. . . with a gorgeous crisp and golden crust. Easily the best I've ever had.
Ingredients
- 4 Slices Bread
- 2 Pieces Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
- 1/4 Cup Butter
Instructions
- Whisk together eggs, cream, vanilla, and cinnamon in a bowl.
- Dip bread slices in the cream mixture.
- Put bread slices and any remaining cream mixture in a sous vide bag.
- Cook for an hour at 147F.
- Finish the bread in a buttered pan.
These are easily the best French toasts I've ever had and done. . . the most pillowy and the most flavorful. Nothing too special was changed from a typical recipe actually, just the use of crusty bread and a sous vide pre-cook.
That's expected – everything I've done sous vide so far has ended up way better.
Okay, let's start with our soaking batter. Still the usual eggs, vanilla, some cinnamon powder, and heavy cream in place of the more usual milk. I found that using cream yields a thicker consistency which would be held up better by the bread. This would translate to more moisture and of course, more flavor.
Building up your own personal flavors into this mix is definitely possible. My personal favorite additions are orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla. I just find those citrus flavors perfect to brighten up this sweet breakfast dish.
You may have your own favorites by now, but here are some suggestions anyway: coffee, ginger powder, maple syrup, chili powder, cheese.
Whisk everything together until it turns out smooth. Then dunk those crusty bread slices in, allowing them to soak up as much of the mix as they can.
I suggest that you use fairly thick slices of bread – about an inch to an inch and a half. They'd just end up fluffier and more moist compared to using thinner slices. Also, drier bread ends up soaking much more of our flavored batter.
Get your bread inside sous vide bags together with any batter left over. They'll get soaked up further as we cook these toasts in the sous vide bath.
Get that bag to cook for an hour at 147F.
You'll notice that none of the batter would be left in the bag when the time's up – those slices of bread will just hold it all in. You'll by now get an idea how pillowy they'll end up. Psyched for french toast? I'm psyched about my new Chefsteps Joule immersion circulator. Click the link to read the full review.
Heat some butter in a non-stick pan and set those soaked up bread slices to get a nice toast on the outside. I suggest that you work over medium heat to keep the butter from excessive browning, giving the toasts about 2 minutes per side before flipping them over.
Enjoy your bread as you usually do – with some fresh fruit, some syrup, eggs, bacon. . . I'm just that sure you'll pay more appreciation to the toasts this time.
Look at how fluffy that inside is given that perfectly toasted crust. That's how perfection looks like.
I served mine with some maple syrup as I usually do. Honestly, these toasts were so moist, they'll be good with a light dusting of sugar alone.
Ingredients
- 4 Slices Bread
- 2 Pieces Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
- 1/4 Cup Butter
Instructions
- Whisk together eggs, cream, vanilla, and cinnamon in a bowl.
- Dip bread slices in the cream mixture.
- Put bread slices and any remaining cream mixture in a sous vide bag.
- Cook for an hour at 147F.
- Finish the bread in a buttered pan.
I wish you would have told us what type of bread to use. I find that sourdough holds up the best! ( I Love my Sous Vide!)
Thanks for the tip Harry! I usually use whatever is available, but sour dough french toast sounds delicious! In fact, I suspect that french toast started as a way to revive life into stale bread, so I’m sure that a wide variety of breads are used with different results.
You are right, in France it’s called “pain perdu” or “lost bread” . Since baguette goes stale pretty quickly this is one way to re-use it.
So do I need to get the bag to stay underwater? The reason I ask is that my sous vide bag is floating with just french toast in it and these instructions don’t make any mention of it.
Clip it to the side with these. Some people use a sous vide oven, so the floating is not an issue. Other people use plastic “balls” to trap in heat, or weights (as long as they don’t rest on the food)
Have you tried sou-biding them , freezing and thawing and toasting later.
Curious as well if I could sous vide them and then cook them the next day?