There are so many great uses for stale bread. Panzanella, the rustic Italian bread salad, is a versatile way to use it up. Another great use for stale bread is to make it the base of a savory or a sweet breakfast casserole. The stale bread works well in these recipes because the moisture in the wet ingredients rehydrates the stale bread.
One of the quickest, most satisfying, make-you-feel-like-a-kid-again ways to use stale bread is to make French toast. Bread dipped in an egg-milk mixture and fried on a griddle in butter is a delicious breakfast or brunch and an excellent vehicle for maple syrup, cinnamon and sugar, blueberry compote, or whipped cream.
If you want French toast, but all your bread is fresh, there’s a hack on TikTok that claims to turn fresh bread into a better vehicle for dipping into the egg-milk mixture (also called custard), and you almost certainly have what you need in your kitchen for this simple trick.
How to Make Better French Toast
If you’re making just a couple of slices of French toast, a pop-up toaster is all you need for this hack, but if you’re making more, you’ll need a toaster oven or your oven because toasting the bread is all you need to do to elevate your French toast game.
On TikTok, Sheenamarie3568 announced to her followers, “I was today years old when I learned you’re supposed to toast your bread before you make French toast. Why did no one ever tell me!”
That simple video garnered over 43,000 comments. While many of them said some variation on, “I’ve never done that,” many saw the brilliance in the trick and let others know in the comments. “I know you’re supposed to let the bread dry out a bit to help it absorb the custard and help keep its form. So that makes sense.”
And it does seem to make some sense. Because toasted bread is dried out, it can absorb more of the custard, even more moisture than most stale bread.
Does Toasted Bread Really Make Better French Toast?
The question is, though, does toasting really make a big difference, and is that difference better? I tried the trick using fresh slices from a basic loaf of white bread. I toasted three slices of bread until they were browned. Then I put them in the egg-milk mixture until the bread soaked up the custard, the way everyone does when they make French toast.
I griddle-fried them in a little butter. My verdict? I saw no difference in texture. The extra step seemed unnecessary.
But the extra step was so simple, took just a couple of minutes, and—most importantly—cost nothing and dirtied no additional dishes, so I think this is one of those cooking tricks you should try out for yourself. You have nothing to lose, and your conclusion may be different from mine.
Dining and Cooking