Challah French Toast

When I was growing up, my mom's french toast was the be-all-end-all of french toasts. When I was a bit older, she started making it for my friends and my brother's friends at our lake house in the mornings after our long nights up. It became one of those meals that was just EXPECTED when you stayed with us. Though I tried today to make it just like my mom, I'm still trying to get the kinks worked out. But here's what I came up with:

1. My mom uses french loaf, but being in Jew New York, Challah is available at every corner grocery. The traditional bread cooked for the Jewish Sabbath, Challah (pronounce ha-lah or kha-lah) bread is excellent when used for french toast. I bought whole wheat holiday Challah from West Side Market. Holiday Challah is different because rather than being braided, it is in a round loaf. SO. I cut the Challah in half length wise and cut it into 1" slices. Let it sit out overnight to get a bit stale to soak up the batter you'll make the next day.

2. For your mixture, combine and whisk

-- 2 eggs

-- 1/2 C milk (we used unsweetened almond milk because 2 of us can't handle dairy)

-- 1/2 C orange juice (Allie had fresh oranges, so we hand squoze squeezed it

-- 1 tsp ground nutmeg (I was actually eyeballing all these ingredients...)

-- 1 tsp cinnamon

-- 1 tsp vanilla

3. Evenly coat as much bread as you can, making sure not to leave it in too long. I don't like over-saturated french toast, but it has to reach the inside for sure. Before you cook it up in the pan, preheat your oven to 400º. Spray your non-stick pan with some Pam, just to be safe. Cook each piece until it's as brown or black as you want, but don't cook it all the way through. Take each piece off, and put onto a cookie sheet.

4. Finish cooking the french toast in the oven. It will not brown the surface any more, but will make sure to cook the egg mixture that's still inside the bread. Keep the cookie sheet in the oven for 10 minutes or less.

Et viola!

I personally like to do a lot of things to my FT. Powdered sugar, syrup, butter, what ever you want. What do you add to yours? Peanut butter and strawberry preserves maybe?