BOOK/A TABLE - A Toast to French Toast

In honor of Bastille Day, I’d like to propose a toast—to the French Toast Loaf! And let’s raise a glass to Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables as well, the epic tome that captured France in the early years of the nineteenth century so vividly. It also happens to be a great read.

Hugo’s hero Jean Valjean was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, of course, but I can’t help but feel the gendarmes of the day would have turned a blind eye if he’d stolen this fantastic French Toast Loaf instead! I mean, who could blame him?

This is a perfectly portable dish after all (you can also try stuffing your mixture into muffin tins), to be delivered to a friend’s brunch table or simply enjoyed for breakfast at home with a liberal slathering of butter, alongside a cup of steaming coffee and fresh juice. Grab on the way to work or consider as a dessert, topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

A spritz of Cointreau or brandy might be a nice finishing touch to the syrup added to the top of your loaf and certainly feel free to add in some chopped pecans or walnuts. Crispy bacon crumbles...? 

As Hugo wrote: “Happiness unadorned is like unbuttered bread: one may eat it but one does not dine.” 

So cheers then, to a whole lot of adorned happiness!

Behold the innards of our marbelized loaf...at a quick glance, one might mistake it for a sumptuously good terrine or a gooey mille-feuille pastry!

French Toast Loaf
(Serves four comfortably for a lovely breakfast accompaniment)
Ingredients
4 x 6 1/2-inch foil loaf pan 
4 challah rolls, torn apart by hand
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (or maple syrup)
1/2 TB ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp lemon zest from fresh lemon
A few fresh grinds of black pepper
Pinch or two salt

Method
Pre-heat 400-degree oven. Lightly coat pan with butter or a few sprays of Pam. Whisk together wet ingredients in a serviceable bowl and add in spices. This is where the few drops of liqueur could be added in as well before mixing in some chopped nuts. Add challah pieces and coat thoroughly (it is very important to soak all the pieces) mashing it all together with your fingers and tightly molding it together before slipping the mixture into your pan. Spray with Pam. Put into oven for five minutes before reducing heat to 350-degrees for another 25 minutes. Remove from oven and pour maple syrup on top and let rest for five minutes before serving.  

Did you ever see the musical version of Les Misérables? Several times? Let me know in the comments!