French Toast Bites

french toast bites with maple caramel sauce

There's always leftover bread in my house after the holidays and the perfect way to use them is making them into French toast (pain perdu) for breakfast or brunch. Old baguette, brioche, or challah is my bread of choice because not only are they delicious they also don't become soggy. This time I made them into small bites with maple caramel sauce and different toppings.
BTW, the Japanese duo Cibo Matto has a song Le Pain Perdu, about getting out (of a relationship) before it gets stale, check out the lyrics. I actually got the idea of making pain perdu when this song came on while I was preparing the turkey stuffing.:-)


Le Pain Perdu Lyrics

French Toast Squares
1 egg, well beaten
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoon flour
½ cup whole milk
2 cups 1-inch cubed day old baguette or brioche
butter
powdered sugar, optional

• Mix egg, sugar, flour, and milk. Soak bread for 10 minutes. Heat a skillet, add 2 T butter and fry bread until golden brown and crisp. Serve with syrup and fruits of your choice or top with Nutella, fruit preserves, or sweetened heavy cream. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.

French Toast

Yesterday while at the checkout counter at the grocery the in-house baker came carrying a bunch of freshly baked Italian loaves/baguettes and plopped them right in front of me. The aroma and the warmth coming from the bread is irresistible, as if it was whispering to me "take me home". I was there to buy whole milk for the corn chowder I was going to make for dinner tonight and ended up also buying a large bread. I can't help it I love bread, I couldn't care less about carbs. So since it is large I made half of the loaf into French toast for today's breakfast. When my daughter came home yesterday I just finished frying and cooling them to put in the fridge. Of course she had to eat one right away, sprinkled icing sugar, drizzled store bought butterscotch sauce, and topped with Reddi wip whipped cream, it was fantastic. For my breakfast today I did the same minus the icing sugar, yummy. It sounds sinful but it actually is not, a tablespoon of Reddi wip has only half a gram each of saturated fat and sugar/carb, there is no trans fat. I drizzled maybe a TBS of sauce which is not that bad either, a tablespoon also has half a gm of sat fat and 4 grams of carbs.