Coffee-infused french toast
Original recipe from delicious
When it comes to French toast, I usually turn to simple supermarket sliced bread, dipped in egg and sugar, fried, and lathered with maple syrup. But when I first stumbled across Darren Purchese’s coffee-infused French toast, I couldn’t resist the prospect of edging this breakfast classic even closer to dessert.
The original recipe called for brioche (sans crust) and a hefty soaking time and, although sceptical, the first time I made this recipe I obliged.
Ultimately, I should’ve trusted my gut. Removing the crusts not only reduced the size of the brioche and eventual French toast but also compromised its structural integrity.
This paired with soaking each side for 15-minutes led to saturated slices that were on the verge of falling apart in the pan and toast that never really cooked all the way through despite being fried and then grilled.
Thankfully I persevered and followed my instincts, giving this recipe another whirl but this time with crusts in tact and a reduced soaking time.
A warning for those in a time crunch, this is not your average dunk-and-fry French toast. Between making the nut crumble and then drying, soaking, frying and baking the brioche, this breakfast requires forethought, preparation and patience.
It pays off, the flavour profile here is far more complex than its run-of-the-mill counterpart. This recipe shuns French toast’s traditionally ice-cream laden one-dimensional sweetness in favour of an elegant composition of flavours and textures.
The sweet brioche is balanced by bitter coffee, the creamy yoghurt by the crunchy nut crumble, and the ripe banana by the slightly tart passionfruit.
Ingredients
Nut crumble
35 g almond meal
60 g plain flour
45 g light brown sugar
45 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
20 g hazelnuts, shelled and chopped
20 g blanched almonds, chopped
20 g walnuts, chopped
French toast
4 x 3cm slices of brioche loaf
300ml full-cream milk
2 tsp Lavazza Prontissimo instant coffee granules
4 eggs, lightly beaten
pinch of salt flakes
120 g icing sugar
60 g unsalted butter
Toppings
2 bananas, sliced
4 scoops of Greek yoghurt
2 passionfruits, scraped
C sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
The night before, make the nut crumble mixture by adding almond meal, flour, brown sugar, melted butter and nuts to a bowl and mixing with your fingertips to form a crumble. Set aside in an airtight container overnight.
The next morning, place the brioche slices in an airtight container and refrigerate for 1 hour. This will dry out the bread and make it easier to soak.
Boil the milk and stir in the coffee granules until dissolved, set aside.
Whisk together the eggs, salt flakes, and 40 g of icing sugar until combined.
Slowly stream the milk mixture into the eggs, whisking to combine, and strain into a shallow dish.
Soak brioche in the egg mixture for 5-7 minutes on each side, remove from dish and place on a wire rack to drain for 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a tray with baking paper.
Melt softened butter in a non-stick frying pan and dust each slice of brioche with remaining icing sugar.
Add the brioche slices to the pan and fry for a couple of minutes on each side or until the toast is golden brown and caramelised.
Transfer brioche from the pan to the prepared baking tray and top with sliced banana and nut crumble mix.
Bake for 15 minutes or until the nut crumble is a golden brown.
Remove from the oven, top with Greek yoghurt and passionfruit seeds, and serve immediately.