Sunday, March 29, 2009

Experimental Cooking : Breadless French Toast

Bread is something I almost never have around. It goes bad too quickly and I grow enough mold around here as it is. It's really nice to have on the weekends, though, because it's such a fundamental part of a leisurely breakfast: eggs with toast or French toast. While thinking how bored I was with the various edible options available to me this morning, I decided to see if it might be possible to make French toast with crackers instead. It is! Kind of.

I did some googling and determined that if this had been tried before, it at least wasn't described in the way in which I was searching for it.

I got out my trusty Modified 1964 Joy of Cooking French Toast Recipe and got to work. I pretty much cut it in half:

  • 2 eggs (I didn't cut these in half, because I figured I need more to hold it together)
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 a cup of milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon poorly poured vanilla (no more than a tablespoon, I'm sure)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar (I put in an extra tsp by accident and just now noticed.)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons canola oil
  • 8 Jacob's Cream Crackers (the ones that Wallace and Gromit eat)
I mixed it up and put some whole crackers in the liquid. I decided that it wasn't going to work without breaking them up into little pieces, as if you were going to add them to soup. Perhaps if the cracker exteriors were sanded somehow, but that's not exactly practical. I let the cracker batter mixture soak for a few minutes while I made coffee.

I used a 1/3 cup scoop and the first couple seemed closer to a scramble than something I could flip, but I'm not terribly good at frying things. I think there was too much liquid, so it either needs more crackers or perhaps only one egg. Different crackers might be good, too. I have a feeling this might be good using Triscuits.

It kind of turned out ok. It tasted pretty good and you get random bits of crunchiness here at there. I applied plenty of maple syrup and cinnamon, so the effect was close to the same experience, with less sponginess.

I ended up burning the last one, but the contents of the plate above were just the right serving size for me.

4 comments:

  1. Eggs + crackers seems pretty close to what my husband and inlaws would call Matza brei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matzah_brei

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  2. Amy H1:16 PM

    Ha! Yvonne beat me to the matzo brei link -- but yes, French toast made with crackers is not only possible, but completely traditional. It's also made in non-sweet versions, but I've never quite seen the point.

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  3. Thanks! I figured my search criteria were lacking, but hunger made me give up easily. :) Maybe I'll look for a traditional matzo brei recipe should I decide to refine this one day.

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  4. I am beating by both to the Matzah Brie punch. Tip: the way I've made Matzah brie is to let it soak up the egg and then damp it down to remove extra moisture. Then you can either scramble it in pieces or you can use strips that you fry on each side, which is closer to French toast.

    I like it both savory (salt, pepper and related spices) or sweet with maple syrup or powdered sugar and cinnamon.

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