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Sunday, July 31, 2011

the "french" breakfast

This morning I (had) decided I was going to be fancy and make some french toast from scratch. Being inspired from 5 ingredient fix, I saw her make her french toast with Brioche bread, I decided to find a recipe for Brioche. After a quick Google search I found this website for Brioche:
The end result was delicious and made the breakfast more homemade, but I sadly had some trouble making it. First I underestimated the time I had to cook the Brioche. (it takes 3+ hours) so I decided to let it rise over night. Then I put all the ingredients in right except the milk, sadly it called for 1/3 c. of milk but I put in 3/4. (don't ask me why I thought thats how much to put in) so it was way too runny and I had to scrap the whole thing. :(
so I tried again and got all the ingredients right and let it rise over night.
Fast forward to next morning about 7:30(I'm an early riser) I took the brioche out of the pan and rolled it on a floured surface and put it in a bread pan to rise. About an hour later the bread had still not risen much. I thought maybe thats how it was supposed to be, (not having made bread much before) but my mom informed me that the bread was supposed to rise an inch above the bread pan. It turns out my bread was still too cold, and needed to rise on top of my slightly warm stove top. But it did not take too long and rose very nicely. The cooking of the bread was not difficult at all.
So because of all the delays with the bread I decided to make the french toast for lunch.

Simple Brioche loaf recipe
(from About.com/french food)

Prep time: about 3+hours

Cook time: 35 min.




Ingredients 

1 2/3 c. all-purpose flour
3 1/4 t. active dry yeast
3 T. granulated sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. milk, warm
2 3/4 oz. unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs plus 1 egg, divided and lightly beaten
1 T. granulated sugar (for sprinkling)

Prep:
In a bowl, I used a mixer, stir together the flour, yeast, sugar, and saltThen add the wet stuff, warm milk, butter, and eggs. Knead until smooth. When it is all together set aside to rise for two hours, or until doubled in size. Then transfer to a floured surface and punch down a few times. I then grease my bread pan and roll my bread into an oval and place it in the bread pan. Allow it to rise for 45 to 60 minutes. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Remove the dough and brush with beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350, keeping your bread in the oven, and bake for 25 more minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Then take a butter knife and run along edges of the bread and pop out onto a cooling rack. This makes 10 servings. Now when your brioche is cooled you can start working on the good stuff...the french toast. This recipe I have used before and had very little trouble with. The only screw ball that was sent my way was the fact that the flour I was using had the tendency to clump and I had to drain my egg mix to get the clumps out. If you are using normal flour you should have no problem. This recipe I got from yummy.com I posted the link here: http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Denny_s_style-French-Toast-Recipezaar These are delicious and you won't mind the 286 calories.
Ingredients: 4 eggs 2/3 c. Whole milk 1/3 c. Flour 1/3 c. Sugar 1/2 t. Vanilla 1/4 t. Salt 1/8 t. Cinnamon 6 slices of brioche Powdered sugar Agave nectar or maple syrup Butter Prep: Mix together eggs, milk, flour, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon. Then start heating up your skillet. When heated up melt some butter in the pan. Dip your bread in the egg mix for 30 seconds on each side. Squeeze out a little excess and overlap on plate. Then place the be bread in the skillet and cook for 1 and 1/2 min. On each side. You can serve it like me with agave and powdered sugar. Yum! So I hope this has helped you a little in your quest for good french toast. I know I sure have learned from my mistakes and I'm really going to make these again!