French Toast

Can you tell it's a little slow at work for me today? :P

So I've been craving french toast the past week. I looked at a bunch of recipes over the past few days and decided to try my hand at my own. Also, I bought a loaf of whole wheat bread by accident (I meant to buy multi-grain, but picked up the wrong loaf), so I needed to use it up. I got up early enough this morning to try my hand at french toast.

Ingredients
1 cup soy milk (8th Continent vanilla)
2 T nutritional yeast
2 T ground golden flax seeds
2 T garbanzo bean flour
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

5 slices whole wheat bread

safflower oil for frying

What I did
First, for the dipping mixture I picked a large glass bowl that would fit my bread slices. Then, I added the first five ingredients, with J's help, and whisked them together. I put maybe 1/4-1/2 inch safflower oil in my pan for frying and got it all nice and hot. I dipped my first piece of bread into the bowl and covered both sides with the mixture, then placed it in the hot oil and fried it. One side, then the other. I blotted it on a paper towel when I took it out of the pan, and served it to J with Earth Balance and organic maple syrup. I know something is a hit with her when she eats it all by herself, which she did! :)
Repeat with the remaining pieces of bread.

What I learned was that the other four were much more like the french toast I remember. I think that the mixture sat a little longer and firmed up, so it made those four pieces a little better. Not that J didn't love hers, but the mixture was more watery with the first piece and less so for the remaining. Next time, I will probably let the mixture sit for a few minutes before making the piece.

I ate two pieces of this, which were great. My first was still a little soggy in the middle, so I will fry it a bit longer next time. I used the deeper oil to fry (rather than just a bit to keep it from sticking) for two reasons. First, my pans are really sticky, so everything is sticking. (Note to self, need to research SAFE non-stick alternative). Second, one of the recipes I looked at when making my own was for Indian-style french toast. In addition to the crazy spices (which I might try at some point), the author suggested using more oil for the frying, based on her parents' use of several inches of oil for frying french toast when she was a kid. The extra oil really worked and nothing burnt to my pan and the french toast didn't burn. So, yeah, I probably used more oil than necessary, but I can adjust that as time goes on. The not-sticking was definitely worth it!