I have, on my wordpress dashboard, a half-written post about how I really messed up the frosting for my mom’s birthday cake. It was so unfortunate, I couldn’t bring myself to publish the pictures. I had crafted this amazing, sumptuous vanilla cake. It was all super-yellow irish butter and whole vanilla bean goodness. The batter was a voluminous mousse of what appeared to be lighter-than-air vanilla pudding. While it baked, a heavenly vanilla scent filled my apartment.

Deciding that this cake was perfect in every way, I set about deciding on the perfect flavors to accompany such a cake. I would turn some egg yolks (I have a bowl in my freezer containing no fewer than 2 dozen yolks…more on that later) into a raspberry curd fit for the finest vanilla gelato. I’d lighten the curd with freshly whipped cream, and make a giant raspberry whipped-cream sandwich on perfect vanilla cake. I’d top it with great swoops of marshmallowy 7-minute frosting. What could be better?

Probably nothing, if that was how it had actually gone down.

Working from a new recipe for the frosting, I made a great big batch of failure. It was runny, and didn’t  hold it’s shape, or even stay on the cake. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. I tried making a second batch, once I was at my parents’ house, so I wouldn’t have far to travel if things went awry. Which is what happened.

I ended up with a big ugly pillow of unpretty. I topped it with dots of unlighted raspberry curd and swirled them around the big white pile of cake. It was all I could think of; I felt pretty defeated at that point.

It’s what’s inside that counts. That cake was bloody perfect inside. Delicious, extra yellow yellow cake mingled with the tastiest thing I’ve ever used for cake filling, and the marshmallowy goodness of even a failed 7-minute frosting was a delightful touch atop each bite. On a different day, thinking a bit straighter, I’d have simply iced the cake with more whipped cream.

My dad totally loved the frosting, even though it was the biggest blow to my self-esteem since my first attempt at french macarons (a little food blogger humor, wink! no really, there’s a sad story about these on it’s way.), so when it was time for his birthday, I decided to give it another go.

The day I had set aside to bake this cake, I separated 14 eggs and let them come to room temperature. As I watched episode, after episode of Bones that afternoon, sipping some tomato soup I’d cooked up, my mistake with those first batches of frosting dawned on me. I hadn’t used fresh eggs. See, packaged egg whites have worked fine for me when it’s come to basic meringues for the tops of lemon tarts, and they’re absolutely ideal for fat-free omelets (if you’re into that sort of thing), but there are times when actually separating your own eggs is crucial.

Angel Food cake is, I think, one of those times. And after two failed batches of 7-minute frosting; 7-minute frosting is, I think, another one of those times. When I baked that cake, I contemplated the care I had taken to make sure it was a success. I had cracked the eggs hours earlier. I made sure they were room temperature before proceeding. Was this necessary? Martha says it was, and I was not about to throw away 14 whites worth-of failure-meringue. Some things shouldn’t be left to chance.  So as with the cake, I separated my eggs for the frosting by hand.

Guess what? Perfect 7-minute frosting ensued. I left that beautiful angel food cake upside-down over night, taking it’s sweet time to cool completely. The next day, I whipped up the frosting in no more than ten minutes, and had it covering the cake in no time. In perfect swoops.

After this, let’s not talk about that other birthday cake anymore.

The cake was an angel food cake, split about a third of the way down, and filled with 7-minute frosting and diced apricots. It was topped with the same frosting and more fruit, which I had glazed with some peach-coriander jam by Kissel’s.

Raspberry Curd

2 cups raspberries, fresh or frozen (thawed, if frozen)

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

4 egg yolks.

1 stick of butter, cut into cubes

Puree the raspberries and strain out the seeds. Combine everything but the butter  in a metal (non-reactive!) bowl over some simmering water. I usually just use my stand mixer bowl.  Whisk continuously until the mixture has thickened. It could take as long as 15 minutes.  Remove the mixture from the heat and strain it. If you stopped stirring at some point, and your egg yolks got a little chunky, all of that will go away now. This second strain will also catch any raspberry seeds you didn’t get the first time.  Stir in your butter. Let this beauty cool in the fridge, with some plastic wrap set right over the curd, not stretched over the bowl. Ta da!

One stormy February evening, I decided to try my hand at making guimauve. Actually, it wasn’t any old stormy February evening. It was the night of the harshest, scariest, and worst blizzard that I have even known. My roommate and I spent that afternoon making preparations: we got sandwiches and spicy mac & cheese at Costello’s in Lincoln Square. We also bought tons of Kit Kat bars.

We had the day off from work because we were planning to attend a tour of the Goose Island brewery (this was prior to the acquisition by Anheuser-Busch. RIP Goose Island), but it was surely going to be cancelled as the weather grew worse and worse, so all of our friends opted to stay home and avoid whatever fate awaited the overly brave.

the door to my building

As the night approached, we warmed ourselves in our cozy living room, watching court shows and episodes of Cheaters. I searched for marshmallow recipes as we waited for the storm to begin. I found what I was looking for at Bravetart.

No matter what the circumstances, I always find it soothing to be alone in a kitchen, whipping up some confection. That night, as my roommate nailed a sheet over a living room window that was especially drafty, I happily boiled sugar, knowing I was doing my part to ensure we’d be comforted that very cold night, in our now slightly less drafty apartment.

my car, the morning after

The owner of the recipe warns of a weird “barnyard” smell, if you opt to use honey in place of corn or maple syrup. I was all out of corn syrup, and maple syrup is like TWENTY DOLLARS (which is why  i only use it on fake bacon and french toast), so I used some lovely local honey a coworker had given me. (I’d love to post some information about who makes the honey, as I hear it’s acquired by some awesome guy who rescues beehives from your house so you won’t vacuum them, and then he cultivates them. When I have that info, it’s yours.) It smelled crazy and malty, like we were brewing beer. We actually also brew beer in our apartment so we have a bit of an affinity for the aroma. :]

my roommate, helping me dig out my car

After a short boil, the mixture set in the fridge for a few hours. Then, a big pan of marshmallow was cut into uniform little cubes, and rolled in powdered sugar. Some went straight into the freezer, where they have kept beautifully for months now. Others went into the fridge, and several days later, when my work re-opened post-blizzard, were divvied up amongst coworkers. The rest were tossed almost immediately into jacuzzis of hot chocolate, prepared from some homemade “instant” hot cocoa I had made to get us through the winter.

In total, we spent about three days stuck in our apartment. My roommate crafted a sign for our snow lodge that we hung on the outside of our apartment door. We watched the commercial for Debt Stoppers until we liked it. We ate tons of marshmallows.

"These remind me of clarinet practice." -my sister (these were attempt 01. The second batch I made was gorgeous, and looked just like Gesine's)

This recipe belongs to Gesine. She posted it on her blog, along with some pretty awesome trivia about hotcrossbunlore. Apparently, if you make them on Good Friday, there are a ton of delightful benefits to having done so. I’ll admit that when I read about them, I thought that must be some sort of cosmic consolation prize for having just made the driest, spiciest, most-stale-tasting mini breads ever. Hot cross buns always seemed to me a cinnamon roll, without filling and with not enough icing. What it lacked in tender, delicious bread stuffs, it made up for in tasting strongly of spices and fruit. Yay.

This nutmeg is fresh-to-death

I was wrong, though. And if you yourself have been the victim of a terrible hot cross bun, there’s still hope that you could love one, someday. Maybe tomorrow if you have some time to bake these!

Since I fancy myself an apprentice of sorts when it come to Gesine, I made these, on Good Friday, after a grueling day of working for a  grocery store when people are out shopping for a holiday meal. I found that the instructions left a bit of room for interpretation, and I learned some things after the first attempt at making them.

Freshly ground cloves contribute a good amount of spice, without inducing frown-y faces.

When I have seen hot cross buns in the past, they’ve looked a lot like dinner rolls, and they’ve tasted like dinner rolls infused with festive flavors. Just…soul-less. But Gesine’s recipe works very much like a brioche. Her instructions call for combining everything in stages into a stand mixer, and then you “mix with the dough hook until just combined.” I can’t work with instructions like this. I mess things up, really badly, when I’m not sure what to do.WHAT SPEED??? These details are important to me.

Bloomin'

I thought I needed to mix slowly, and prevent too much gluten from developing. After a long time of mixing and not achieving the right look, I turned the mixer way up, but it was just sort of too late. As a result of mixing too slowly, I spent a lot more time on these than I needed to. On top of that, and way more importantly, the dough remained pretty sticky, and scoring a little cross into each bun was painfully difficult and frustrating. The buns were delicious, but sort of flat and underwhelming in the looks department.

mixin'

The second time I made these, I had it figured out. I mixed everything together on a fairly high speed, and when I added the butter, I took it right up to about 8 on my Kitchenaid. That’s how I’d do it if it was brioche. It quickly pulled away from the bowl (in about 6-10 minutes) and while it wasn’t firm, I had a very easy time bouling it into tight individual pieces. Scoring the crosses was very easy, also. I’ll totally make these again, very soon. They were the best right out of the oven Saturday night, but everyone really enjoyed them on Easter as well.
I saved one to keep in my kitchen and prevent fires.

Oh, ps. I left out the cranberries. I love fruit-less bread.

I melt some unsweetened chocolate onto a freshly baked tart shell, so the filling won’t make the shell soggy. In school, we were told to coat shells with either dark of white chocolate depending on the color of the filling, but guess what? I hate white chocolate. So, I used unsweetened, and I thought it looked really nice when the tart was sliced up.

Inside of the tart is a lovely coconut pastry cream. My day off was Thursday, and that’s when I did most of my holiday baking. A typical pastry cream would have no trouble holding up from Thursday until Sunday, but adding coconut to the mix really dries everything. By the Sunday, when I wanted to assemble the tart, it had molded itself to the bowl it was in. There was no hope of stirring it.

Luckily, there’s an easy fix for this. I threw it into a sauce pan and heated it gently on very low heat for around ten minutes. When it was warm, I added a few tablespoons of milk, a little at a time, and gave it a good stir. The idea of the milk is to bring the cream to a consistency where it will be spreadable, but not runny. This thing is made by spooning everything into place; no need for piping bags, tips, or any special skill sets. It’s easy and awesome.

Some freshly whipped chantilly cream tops the coconut pastry cream. Again, I just spooned it over the top. It’s a big lovely cloud of whipped cream, rather than a neat  design. You could of course pipe delicate rosettes onto the tart, or whatever else you’d like, but spooning on the cream is very forgiving. If you over-whip your heavy cream even slightly, your piped designs could look a bit grainy. Plus, this thing is getting covered in shaved coconut, so relax! You have other things to worry about.

I baked macarons, a carrot cake, and two batches of hot cross buns in addition to this tart. Saving myself the headache of transporting it around town from my apartment, to my job, and finally to my sister’s, I just assembled it at her house. I whipped the cream there, heated the pastry cream, and threw it all together. Et voila. Sometimes, easier really is better. This tart was awesome. It was loved by all.

Make it!

For the crust:

any tart dough will do, but I love this one: Pate Sucree Extra
After blind baking, set some chopped chocolate (your favorite kind) atop the still-hot-freshly-baked tart shell, and when it melts, spread it over the bottom of the shell with a pastry brush. Let cool.

For the filling:

milk-  1 1/2 cups

sugar- 1/2 cup

cornstarch – 1/4 cup

egg yolks – 3

salt – a generous pinch

butter – 4 Tbsp

vanilla – 1 tsp

coconut, toasted* – 1/2 cup

Combine milk and sugar in a medium sauce pan, and bring to a boil. While it’s getting there, combine cornstarch, salt  and egg yolks in a separate bowl. You want the cornstarch to be pretty much dissolved in the yolks before you continue.

When your milk mixture is ready, pour a little into your egg mixture and stir it up very well. The hot milk can shock the eggs and scramble them, so this step, called tempering, should help them get used to the idea of being warm. Add up to a third of the milk, and when your egg mixture is nice and warm, pour everything back into the sauce pan. Over medium heat, stir the mixture constantly until it thickens. Don’t stop or you’ll have lumps of egg in your delicious pastry cream.

When your mixture is thickened, remove it from the heat, transfer to bowl, and stir in your butter and vanilla. Stir until the butter is nicely incorporatd. If you have any concerns about chunky bits in your pastry cream, pass it through a fine mesh strainer or chinois. Fold in your toasted coconut.

You want it to be cool, so plunge the bowl into an ice bath, or just get it into the fridge. Whatever you do, cover it with some plastic wrap. Rather than stretching the wrap over the bowl, set it right into the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. You can use it when it’s cool.

When you’re ready to assemble, just spread the pastry cream into the shell.

For the chantilly topping:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

Using cold equipment ( I put the mixing bowl and whisk in the freezer for a few minutes before starting), mix up your heavy cream in the bowl of  a stand mixer, with the whisk attachment. I like to do this at the highest speed possible that doesn’t involve heavy cream flying out of the bowl; something like “4″ on a Kitchenaid. When the mixture appears thickened, add the powdered sugar, and keep mixing until soft peaks have formed. Err on the side of caution. A slightly underwhipped cream is acceptable for our purposes, but overwhipping is noticeable and can lend an unwanted butterness to your chantilly. Plus, there’s no coming back from it unless you add more cream, and maybe you only bought as much as you needed!!

Spoon that whipped cream on top of your coconut cream-topped tart, and sprinkle it with shaved coconut. You can toast the coconut, and it’ll look wonderful, but I didn’t. I think it looks great either way. Make this for dinner parties, Easter gatherings, or Law and Order: SVU marathons.

Note: I was booted from the counter when my brother-in-law had to carve up some sort of meat that I didn’t eat. I assembled the tart from atop the washing machine, which is sort of apparent in the photos. That just goes to show you how easy it was to make this thing.

*To toast coconut, spread it out on a sheet pan and toss it into a warm oven. Keep an eye on it, and when the top layer is nice and browned (but not burnt), and your kitchen smells really, really delicious, you’re all set. I like it when the top is pretty brown, and the stuff on the bottom is still white. I mix everything together and it’s sort of perfect. There’s something to be said for consistency, of course, but when it’s my kitchen, we follow my rules. :] Do it however you like.

I have packages mailed to my sister’s house in the suburbs, so I don’t have to worry about signing for stuff (buzzer doesn’t work) or things getting stolen sitting outside my apartment. I come here every week to babysit, and last week, I was greeted with Gesine Bullock-Prado‘s memoir. I read it in three days, and it only took that long because I was heartbroken by the idea of finishing it.

I had ordered the book based on how much I love her blog, and I’m really happy I did. Within this really moving story, she describes so many wonderful sounding pastries, and then at the end of each chapter, she gives a recipe. I had to google a number of German words, and some pastries to be able to follow at times, and I actually thought that made the book really enjoyable.

Basically, in about a week, I went from having this woman’s blog in the back of my mind (after someone suggesting I check it out), to having read her memoir, and waiting patiently for her cookbook (that I pre-ordered) to come in the mail. Actually, if I had been waiting patiently, I probably wouldn’t have ordered a coffee mug bearing her logo in the same week.

The book wasn’t due to come out until early April, but it got released ahead of schedule, and when I arrived at my sister’s house yesterday, there it was. The book, and the mug. Oh yes, and the mug was filled with macaroons. In the last 24 hours, I have read most of the cookbook, and have eaten every single macaroon, except for the mocha flavor (because of that whole ‘no coffee during lent’ thing). When I gave it some thought, I realized that I should have asked in the comments section of my order if they could omit the mocha. They may not have done it, but if they had, I could have eaten so many more cookies. Plus, I’ll probably order more very soon.

I have such big plans for this book. Right now I’m contemplating some rock candy with my oldest nephew, a cake for Easter, and some candies for the people I work with.

Something I’ve noticed about my weird fan-girl obsession with all things GESINE: unlike so many other food bloggers who are also amazingly talented pastry chefs slash food photographers slash their lives look like an Anthropologie catalog, Gesine’s whole schtick is a little different. She embodies most of those things (I don’t think she’s going  for the whole Anthropologie thing), but when I read her blog, I don’t find myself wanting to redesign my blog to emulate her style. She does, however, make me feel like I have a story to tell, like she has.

In high school, I was well on my way to becoming a writer. My creative writing teacher told me that I was a good writer, because I wrote. Use it, or lose it. I didn’t use it. I also worked for about a year doing pastries, being the absolute happiest version of myself. I gave that up in favor of trying to move up within a company, always telling myself it’s good practice for when I actually run a bakery some day. Maybe it is, but it feels a lot like trading down. My roommate says I’m a writer even if I’m also lower level management at a grocery store bakery. I’m also a pastry chef.

There’s a part of Gesine’s memoir where she cautions those of us thinking about baking for a living against it. After reading that book, I have never in my life been so sure that this is what I want to do.

It started, as many happy days too, with an amazing breakfast. I toasted some croissants from work, fried some eggs and potatoes, and washed a big bowl of cherries. I used my previous roommate’s amazing coffee grinder (he was briefly staying with myself and my new roommate before moving to New York), and brewed a perfect french press. We drank orange juice from little beer glasses, and Kym crafted some flowers for the table, in like, 9 seconds.

All this good stuff was only the beginning of a long, hot, quiet day. We didn’t have internet or television int he apartment, so I spent the day listening to Joanna Newsom, sprawled out on the floor with my Beatles puzzle.

There were lots of lazy days like this in the summertime. There wasn’t much to do except unpack, and I put that off as long as I could. Once, when I was sure I’d have some time for unpacking, Scott called and said he was home from work with a cold. I did a bit of shopping and arrived at his place with some supplies he had requested, as well as everything I needed to make a special cold remedy I’d learned about reading Desserts by the Yard. That day I happily muddled together mint, ginger, lemons and honey, and boiled them into a delicious tea, instead of unpacking.

Another day, I had come home from work, and was reading on the couch, when the power went out in my building. Outside, I heard my new neighbors gathering to discuss the outage. With all of the fans stopped, and no air conditioning, I was noticing more and more the stifling effect of the heat. After only about ten minutes, I ducked out of the apartment and wandered over to the library. It was a quick walk from my place, and once there, I was treated to an hour of reading Martha’s Baking Handbook, browsing craft books, and mooching free wi-fi. Forced to leave at six, when the place was closing, I headed home, praying the power was back on. It wasn’t. I just went to bed.

A few days ago, I headed down to Wicker Park and got some yarn so I could start working on a blanket for my sister. It’s going to be pretty! It’s a tradition I have with my roommate that if we go to Nina, we also go to Alliance and grab some macarons, or some kind of treat. I got this little milk chocolate mousse/cake heart that was filled with passionfruit curd. It was too good!! I started looking up where I could find passionfruit for baking, and last night, I struck gold in Albany Park at Chicago Produce.

I got some puree that was frost-bitten and way in the back of the freezer. The juice thawed overnight in the fridge and I got to work in the morning.

I made a fairly small amount (for making cookies, not filling a cake), so the work was fast. Also, I’ve started getting into making gifts for people, and I think I need to learn how to properly jar these fillings. My roommate brought some lemon curd home from a NYE party hosted by a chef, and I used some to fill macarons…in March. It was wonderful, because it was jarred.

People’s scones don’t know they’re missing passionfruit curd, but trust me, they are.

We ended up parking on a really busy road, having totally given up on finding a spot on a residential street. As we made the seemingly epic journey back to his building, a voice called out to us from the gated window of a garden apartment. Actually, the voice was in no way intended for us, but we heard it.

“You tell him, don’t bring me nothing with no butter in it!”

Nothing special there. Just a lady on the phone. Moving along.

“…No peanut butter!”

That was the beginning of what has been a long-cherished inside joke for us. Reading back over what I just wrote, I find myself giggling in very much the same way I did when I first heard that amazing woman. I also realize that it might be not at all funny to persons who weren’t there that night.

It was the gravity with which she explained exactly which kind of butter she did not want to be brought. That’s what made it so amazing. When I’ve had a few beers, that’s what makes me randomly remind my man not to bring me any peanut butter. Ever. For any reason.

The really funny thing is that lately, he’s been on a peanut butter kick. When I insisted he let me bake his birthday cake, guess what he asked for.

I’ve been trying to update my food blog more frequently, and I have been, at different blog sites. So now I have like 20 of them (some where i use swear words, some where I try to seem professional, or wonder how I would feel if my boyfriend’s mom found my blog…you understand.). I decided this one if my favorite, so I’m doing what I can to consolidate everything around here. Here’s what I originally posted at my posterous about this pb cake.

I made this cake at the request of my boyfriend, for his birthday. He didn’t beg me to make his cake; in fact, he totally would have been alright ordering one. Basically, I begged him to let me do it, and when he said he wanted chocolate peanut butter, I actually got super nervous. There are a few things I think I do really well, and getting out of my comfort zone can be anxiety-inducing. Typically, I like to really research how to make the most fancy, most detailed, craziest cake possible, and I make myself crazy in the process. The day I needed this cake was going to be really packed anyway, so I tried very hard to simplify everything. Here’s what I ended up with:

This chocolate cake recipe from Martha Stewart

+

Martha’s chocolate frosting recipe to match

+

Peanut Butter filling (swiss meringue buttercream + jiff peanut butter)

=

oh man, it was a pretty great cake. Of course, I was so tired from working on it, and keeping an eye on two little dudes, and running around trying to get ready for the birthday dinner, I didn’t even want to look at it by the time it was all said and done. The birthday boy liked it. That’s all I wanted. :]

I just split two baked 8″ layers and filled them all with the peanut butter filling. Everything got topped with the chocolate forsting, which had a really nice crusty texture, like the storebought stuff. The borders and writing were done with peanut butter filling. Simple!

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I spent many happy afternoons at the Baskin Robbins my grandparents owned. Oddly, I don’t remember eating that much ice cream. There was the occasional clown cone (my favorite!), and tons of Blow Pops that my cousins and I would grab from a cup that sat on the counter. Mostly, I remember the cakes. Chocolate jelly rolls filled with fudgy icing and mint chocolate chip ice cream, and birthday cakes adorned with lacy borders or plastic figurines of Disney characters.

When I decided to get into Pastry, my grandma gave me a wonderful offset spatula that she used at the store decades ago. I use it a lot, and I used it to make her this really cute birthday cake, which she loved. It’s a vanilla bean cake with lemon curd, and swiss meringue buttercream.

I love lemon curd! And I love making it. Never buy lemon curd if you can avoid it. Making it is so much fun, and so rewarding, and frankly, really easy.

Think of the zest as a tea. Rub the sugar and lemon zest together to make your kitchen (or my entire apartment) smell amazing, and to encourage the oils from the fruit peel to infuse the sugar. When the eggs are added, steep the zest in the yolks, and once it’s all mixed, and cooked, and thick; strain the zest (like tea!) and there you have it. Buttery, tart, sweet, lovely, and awesome. Inject it into cupcakes! Fill cake layers with it! Top it with a pillowy meringue and then scorch that meringue! Make yourself some french macarons and sandwich-cookie-ify it!

To assemble this cake, I baked it in two 8″cake pans, and split each layer in half after they had cooled. I tinted my butter cream, and using a pastry bag with the end trimmed off (no use using a tip for this job), I outlined each layer in buttercream so the filling wouldn’t be squeezed out the sides once it was assembled. Then, I used the lemon curd to fill in the outline. I did this for three layers, and the fourth was the top of the cake.

Then, I used the same bag of tinted icing to put a decent layer of buttercream around the cake, and I used g-ma’s trusty offset to smooth everything around. A great tip for when you are icing a cake, and you can’t quite get everything smoothed over…use a smaller offset spatula dipped in hot water to iron out lines in your buttercream.

I was really inspired to make ths cake by the book Organic and Chic by Sarah Magid. I used her vanilla cake recipe, which is beyond awesome. The design was also inspired by her use of unexpected colors, and that cute branch technique, which is something that just never occurred to me. The book suggests tinting cake fillings in bright and surprising colors, and I definitely considered hot pink lemon curd, but the yellow and blue paired really nicely. Also, this cake was for my grandma. She thought it was wild enough that the filling was lemon.

My dad taught me a lot about cooking when I was very young. I learned to make pizza dough and pancake batter from scratch before I was ten. Dad usually made dinner and Mom only really cooked for my sisters and me when he was away. She’d almost always make french toast for dinner and often, my dad would complain that he felt terrible about the way we had to eat when he was on the road. Maybe my sisters missed his fancy steaks and sweet potato fries and grilled salmon, but I was always more than happy to sit in the living room, eating my absolute favorite breakfast while I watched some weeknight sitcom lineup.

Perhaps ironically, I didn’t learn to make my mom’s french toast until I was nearly out of the house. Maybe it was more magical not to know, but enlightenment has made this simple breakfast an absolute staple. For my first several attempts I would repeatedly ask my mom, how much sugar? or how much milk? It took a while to feel out the ratios and get it just right. These days, it’s second nature. I can light the burners and have my custard ready before the pan’s heated.

More than easy, this french toast in unpretentious and inexpensive. You probably have everything you need and if you don’t, just leave it out. Unless it’s eggs or bread… It’s also really generous. You’ll get a ton of food for each person. If you aren’t as hungry as I am when I make this, save the custard for the next time you are hungry (Maybe later that day? I wouldn’t keep it too long.) Make this in the mornings for the one who nudges you awake and reads your silly blog or the one who coughs up half the rent. Make it in the evenings and enjoy it while you catch up on your stories.

deb’s working class french toast
serves two

for the custard
4 eggs
1/2ish cup milk or heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (the real stuff, of course)
cinnamon

In a shallow baking dish or pie dish, use a fork to go to town on the eggs. You can also use a whisk, but I find that a fork is really the best tool for this job, since we’re working in a shallow dish and really just combining stuff.

Add the milk, sugar, and vanilla and make sure you work it in really well with the eggs, which can be a little resistant their additions but should come around. I like to put a lot of cinnamon in my french toast, but put in as much as you think you’d like. You really won’t taste it that much, which is why I go kind of heavy. You can alternately sprinkle cinnamon on your finished french toast but that’s not what Deb did…

Dip slices of bread into your custard, being sure to saturate both sides, and cook them on a griddle or saute pan that’s been preheated over a medium flame and greased. I use cheap white loaf bread (bimbo or saralee if I just got paid or I’m celebrating something. wink.) which I keep in the freezer. You can actually get awesome french toast using the still frozen slices. I have yet to find a white bread that doesn’t work. I have also never found a wheat bread that does work. That’s a warning to you. I like wheat bread, but not in my french toast.

Occasionally, I get bread from the bakery where I work, or use bread I’ve made for the french toast. When I do this, I still tend to go with simple white breads, as I feel they yield optimum nostalgia and flavor. However, anyone who is a fan of this dish will already be aware that you can get amazing french toast from fruity breads such as panettone, or fancy high fat breads such as challah and broiche. I maintain that the custard is where it’s at, and that my mom’s working class french toast is the best that I have ever had. And I can’t remember ever seeing a name brand or artisan loaf of bread in the house.

I’m not a proponent of putting butter on your french toast. Strictly syrup for me, but do what makes you happy. Thanksgiving morning, I made myself this french toast and served it with some chantilly and bits of pecan.