French Toast (2 Ingredients, Super Easy)

Recipe: French Toast Recipe »

This French toast recipes makes THE most delicious caramelised French toast but with one secret ingredient. In fact it only requires two ingredients and if you're short on eggs, this doesn't need any! You have to try this ice cream French toast at least once.

About This French Toast

This French toast uses melted vanilla ice cream instead of making a dipping mix with cream or milk, sugar and eggs. Because milk, sugar and eggs is what ice cream is made up of! All it requires is a quick dunk in some melted ice cream and then pan frying it to golden, caramelised perfection. This is my favourite French toast and don't just take my word for it, it comes from a renowned French chef!

In fact, I found that the caramelisation on this French toast was better than anything I get using traditional French toast. And while traditional French toast can be soft and eggy, this has such a beautiful caramelised edge to it without being too "wet".

The idea came from Chef Jacques Pépin when he worked as a breakfast cook at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris. I tried it with leftover brioche and did not like the results but when I used sourdough, it was chef kiss delicious!

His proportions did seem a little much - it was 1- 1.5 cups of melted ice cream for 1 slice of bread which is a lot but perhaps this works for a commercial setting where you are always dipping bread into a big bowl of melted ice cream mixture. I changed the proportions so that you have just the right amount for the bread.

Ingredients For French Toast

• Ice cream or gelato: I used Elato gelato (notspon!) for this. Look for one that contains egg or egg yolks and one with lots of good quality vanilla (Madagascan, Tahitian or Tongan). I also tried this with their Coffee version and Caramelised Fig and they were all delicious.
• White sourdough bread: Sliced white sourdough is the best bread for this ice cream French toast. Brioche or square white bread is just too soft for this and wholemeal or rye isn't ideal for this.
• Butter: I use salted butter.
• Oil: I use olive oil but use your favourite oil.

Tips For Making French Toast

1 - Make sure to look for an ice cream or gelato that uses eggs. This can work somewhat with ice cream without eggs but it is so much better with an egg ice cream. Check the labels, not all ice cream contain egg yolks. Brands like Haagen Daas, Elato and Murray Street all contain egg yolks.

2 - Use white sourdough bread. This is sturdy enough to keep its shape. I always find that the last third of a sourdough loaf is ideal for French toast. Do not use brioche or softer bread for this version using ice cream (see point below).

3 - Do not dunk your bread for too long. Melted ice cream contains more cream than egg which is what gives it a beautiful caramelisation but it also means that it absorbs much quicker. Just a minute on each side will do but make sure all of the bread is moistened and there are no dry patches.

4 - Use a mixture of butter and oil. We want butter for the caramelisation and flavour but butter can burn easier to we add some oil to prevent this happening.

5 - This is fantastic served with extra maple syrup and berries! Jacques serves it with slices of banana.

6 - If you have brioche or milk bread and want to try a cult French toast, try my dupe of the Cafe Aaliyah BEST EVER French Toast from Tokyo! There's a reason why people queue up for this. And not all French toast is sweet, there's also Artichoke & Caramelised Onion French Toast.

French Toast Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 4 minutes

Cooking time: 6 minutes

Makes 4 slices of French toast

Ingredients Needed

• 200g/7ozs vanilla ice cream or gelato
• 4 slices of white sourdough bread
• 30g/1oz butter
• 20ml/0.7flozs oil
• Maple syrup and berries to serve

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 - Melt the ice cream or gelato in a wide bowl. Dunk each slice briefly in the melted ice cream or gelato and set aside on a single layer on a tray.

Step 2 - Heat a large frying pan on medium heat. Add the butter and oil and melt the butter. Place each slice of bread on the frying pan and fry for 2-3 minutes or until caramelised. Turn over and fry for 1-2 minutes until caramelised on the other side. Place on a plate and serve with maple syrup and berries.

Personal Note

Dear Reader, I hope you've had a lovely weekend so far! I always make something like French toast on weekends because there's never enough will or time to do it on weekdays (sleep is priority!).

Last weekend we went to see a movie. We never go to the movies nowadays. I think it's a leftover from COVID but Mr NQN hates the idea of sitting in a theatre with other people. He figures that you can pretty much rent anything and watch it from the comfort of your home anyway. But then I saw something on tiktok that made me book movie tickets straight away.

I'm a massive fan of Formula 1 ever since I started watching Drive To Survive when it came out a few years ago. I love the relationships and drama between teams and within teams and the doco series really highlights it. And there's now an F1 movie out. I saw a recommendation on Tiktok to watch it on a 4DX screen. That's where the chairs move, you get sprayed with water and there may be smoke too. So before Mr NQN could even agree to it, I was buying us tickets to see it in 4DX.

While I absolutely loved it I will say that a part of me is so used to watching things at home that it took me a while to get used to seeing something in a theatre this way. For starters, the chairs really throw you about and I soon regretted wearing a leather skirt as things became slippery with leather against velour and water. Every time a race scene came on I gripped the chair arms. And then I wondered if the water that they were spraying at us was clean. "Do you think they clean the water pipes?" I whispered to Mr NQN. Being a germaphobe is hard y'all!

So tell me Dear Reader, how often do you go to the movies? Have you ever tried French toast made with ice cream? And do you ever make breakfasts like this on weekdays?