Chocolate Cloud French Toast
Challah, the plaited brioche that graces Jewish dinner tables every Friday night, makes for the most opulent French toast base, because of its eggy, buttery fluffiness.
Challah, the plaited brioche that graces Jewish dinner tables every Friday night, makes for the most opulent French toast base, because of its eggy, buttery fluffiness. You can also use brioche, which is eggy bread that isn’t as fancy, but just as buttery. To track down your town’s best challah, head to your local bagel belt on a Friday morning and follow the queues.
SERVES 4-6
Ingredients
1 challah loaf
6 eggs
1 cup (250 ml) milk
3 tablespoons half and half cream 1/2 teaspoon salt flakes
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
31/2 oz (100 g) couverture dark chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil (I like grapeseed oil)
To serve
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting maple syrup, for drizzling
salt flakes, for sprinkling zest of 1 orange (optional) crushed toasted hazelnuts
(optional, but excellent)
Cut your challah loaf into slices about 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick.
Directions
In a bowl big enough for soaking your slices in, whisk the eggs, milk, cream, salt and vanilla together.
Using a sharp paring knife, slice a pocket horizontally into the middle of each piece of challah, deep enough to bury some chocolate, but not all the way to the bottom — like a chicken kiev. Carefully pop bits of chocolate inside each pocket. Lay your choc-laden challah pockets in the eggy mixture for at least
10 minutes, carefully flipping them over halfway through.
Heat a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan over medium–low heat, then splash in a tablespoon of oil. Working in batches, fry your challah slices for 3–4 minutes, until the underbelly turns a glorious shade of golden brown, then carefully flip them over with a spatula to cook the other side. Your French toasts are ready to remove from the pan when the chocolate has just started to ooze out of the pockets, indicating that the eggy bits inside have cooked through as well.
Fry the remaining challah pockets in the same way, adding more butter and oil to the pan each time.
Serve warm, dusted with icing sugar, drizzled with maple syrup, sprinkled with salt flakes and maybe some orange zest and toasted hazelnuts.
Reprinted with permission from The Joy of Better Cooking: LIfe-changing Skills & Recipes to Tempt and Teach by Alice Zaslavsky. Published by Appetite by Random House (February, 2024).
Order your copy from Now Serving bookstore here.
