Melted Maple Walnut Ice Cream French Toast

I am a big fan of recipes that involve a bit of loving neglect.  I love cooking, but am an avid multitasker, or possibly (read: likely) I just get distracted easily.  So recipes that involve intentional forgetfulness are my bread and butter.

Maple Walnut Ice Cream in all it’s glory

It also hurts my soul to toss food away.  If there are bits of leftovers or smatterings of  random ingredients I will try to make them fit together.

This recipe combines my passion for not working too hard to throw a meal together while using up ingredients – in this case, Maple-Walnut Ice Cream leftover from an event last week and day-old Challah bread-that are just sitting around.  It even involves a bit of deliberate neglect in just setting out some ice cream on the counter and letting it melt.

Melted Ice Cream forms that base and replaces milk in this French Toast batter

In the world of breakfast Pain Perdu aka French Toast is the best way I can think of to use stale bread.  This recipe will not work with a fresh loaf – it will get soggy and never recover.

Mix melted Ice Cream, Eggs, Cinnamon, & a touch of Milk to make the batter

Melted Maple Ice Cream French Toast

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Maple Walnut Ice Cream – allowed to melt on the counter
• 2 Eggs
• 1 dash Cinnamon
• 1 Loaf of Day Old Challah Bread – sliced & stale
• Oil or Butter for the pan

Method:

Let the maple ice cream melt in a wide, flat dish.  I used a glass baking dish.  Set it out an hour or so before you plan to make breakfast and just forget about it until you are ready.

If you must, you can buy a fresh loaf of bread just to make this French toast.  Just be sure to slice it the night before – very thick and let it sit out overnight. Just like the ice cream, the trick is to let it be.

Once the ice cream is melted, add the eggs and the cinnamon and whisk it together to form the batter.  It will be very thick.  If you need to thin with a little milk, go for it.

In the meantime, heat a little oil/butter/ghee/cooking spray – whatever you use to keep things from sticking – in a frying pan or griddle over medium heat.  Once it is hot, turn down to medium-low.

Dredge (fun word, isn’t it?) individual slices of bread through the batter, coating both sides.  Let the batter really soak in – that stale bread can take it!  Dunk the slices one at a time, and never more than you can fit in your pan at once.  This ice cream had walnuts in it, so I just pressed the walnuts into the bread and they went straight into the pan as well.

Cook up the French toast slices in an oiled pan, until golden-brown on both sides

Move the soaked slices right into your hot pan, moving them around a bit when they first land so that they don’t stick.  Cook them for 1-2 minutes per side until they are golden brown and crispy.

Stack them on a plate in a warm oven and move on to the next batch until you have cooked up the entire loaf.

Enjoy with syrup, butter, jam, whipped cream, powdered sugar or any of your usual French Toast accoutrements.

Greg always eats his French Toast slathered with some almond butter and recommends a Whiskey-Maple Syrup for an extra sugar overload.

Voila, as they say in France.

Department of NOT following the recipe:

• You could use any Ice Cream you fancy.  I just used Maple Walnut, because that is what I had around and I thought to myself, “Hey, self! Maple Syrup and French Toast go together, so Maple Ice Cream should go also.”  Next time I might give Ginger Ice Cream a try.
• Challah bread is optional.  You could go for a baguette or sandwich bread or cinnamon bread – but the stale rule still applies.

– Lydia, Proud Owner of Over 40 Reusable Shopping Bags