Yes, folks, it’s been a while! I’ve been awfully busy over the last two weeks because…..life! I had some leftover French bread that had gone stale over a few days last week and I decided to make pain perdu. I guess you could use regular sandwich bread that’s gone stale, but it’s so much better with French or Italian bread! You can even use those Italian loaves at Walmart (the ones without seasoning or sesame seeds, of course). It doesn’t HAVE to be French or Italian bread, but the French and Italian loaves are able to better stand up to a soaking in milk and eggs than regular sandwich bread would.
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
pinch of salt
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
6 slices of stale bread
3 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
powdered sugar, for serving
Whisk milk, eggs, salt, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Slice the bread at least 1 inch thick a couple of days before. You can let them sit in an open bag or on a plate on the counter to let them go stale. Toss the slices in the milk/egg mixture until it’s all absorbed (may take about 5 or 10 minutes.) The key is to completely saturate the bread. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Heat butter and oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Lightly brown the soaked slices about 2 minutes per side. Don’t brown them too much, because you’ll be baking these slices of gold! Transfer the slices to a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake for about another 5 minutes to brown the other side. Serve with powdered sugar. Or syrup. Or fruit sauces. Or whatever blows your skirt up. You got to eat it, not me.