Sunday Brunch is back! I kind of sort of fell off the Sunday Brunch wagon for a little while, but I’m back and holding on they way kids hold on to those last few days of summer vacation. Speaking of the last few days of summer, can you believe that it’s almost September? Insane right? What is also insane is this crazy delicious french toast.
Mike and I were at one of our favorite bakeries the other day and as I was looking at all the gorgeous loaves of bread I couldn’t decide which one I wanted. I completely blanked and begged Mike to just buy a loaf, any loaf. He choose the ever classic pain de mie and I did a little twirl when he did because I love pain de mie!
As we walked out of the bakery, my head was spinning with all the ideas of what we could make with our glorious loaf of bread. Then, I remembered an instagram I saw of a brûlée toast topped with ice cream and honey and knew that was the first thing I had to make. Essentially, it was a slice of Japanese milk bread topped with sugar, torched, then finished with ice cream and caramelized honey.
It was a no brainer that brûléed toast would absolutely delicious, but then we took it a step further by making french toast instead of just regular. I didn’t have any milk or cream on hand, but there was ice cream in the fridge so I came up with the brilliant idea of using ice cream in the egg mixture instead of milk and sugar. It worked out really well and I liked the parallelism of having ice cream in the french toast as well as on top.
This was seriously so good: creamy custard-y french toast, topped off with crackly caramelized sugar, cold yet melty ice cream, and a drizzle of honey. Sunday brunch dreams do come true!
Crème Brûlée French Toast Recipe
makes 1 decadent toast
- 2 eggs
- vanilla ice cream
- 1 very thick slice bread of choice (I used the classic pain de mie)
- butter, for the pan
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- honey, to finish
Whisk the eggs together with 1 tablespoon of melted vanilla ice cream. Dip the slice of bread into the egg mix, flipping once, letting soak completely. Melt a bit of butter or oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add the soaked slice of bread and fry until golden brown and crisp, flipping once. Sprinkle on the sugar evenly and then torch, with a kitchen torch, until the sugar is melted and caramelized. Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of honey. Enjoy immediately!
We call that recipe “pain perdu” which means “Lost bread” with milk and eggs at the first step. We make it with old bread but it is better with brioche.
brioche pain perdu would be even more delicious!
Ooo do share which bakery you and Mike went to ^___^ By the way, love the close-up ice cream pic!
it was seawolf bakery, in seattle! i love their sourdough! :)
***Drooling*** French toasts are my most favorite breakfast food. I’ve never made toast with pain de mie, your recipe encourages me give it a try, cool.