Challah If You Like French Toast

I'll admit I wasn't always a fan of french toast. Good beefy bread was hard to come by in the rural area that I grew up, on a back road in "east" Virginia, as my husband mockingly refers to it. I don't think we ever had anything other than crappy white bread the local grocery, Winn-Dixie (yes, that's really the name. I know because it was my first official employer) tried to pass off as Italian bread, or maybe they labelled it French bread but it doesn't really matter because the only thing it was fit for was the birds. This is a long-winded and roundabout way of saying the french toast I grew up with was something you suffered through, taking long draughts of milk to help the pieces go down.

So bad was that first impression, french toast was not in our family's food vernacular until I came across a recipe in the Barefoot Contessa's Family Style cookbook that recommended the use of Challah bread as the perfect loaf for the job, one that could hold up to a 5 minute soak in a lovely custard of egg and cream without falling apart. I found Challah at Whole Foods, either with raisins or without, but at $4.99/loaf it's kind of an investment. However, unlike your stocks and your 401k, which can be kind of iffy these days, this is an investment that is guaranteed to pay off in the currency known as happy family.
Let your loaf stale in the bag a day or two, or if you are impatient, leave it out overnight. Use a sharp bread knife to serrate it into 3/4" slices. If properly stale, each slice acts as a sponge that soaks up the custard, which when cooked over medium-low heat, yields a perfectly firm yet moist piece of the most irresistible french toast ever. Sometimes we make a homemade syrup of honey, butter and cinnamon but when we have it, our favorite topper is good ol' Wisconsin maple syrup. When we're out of both, we've topped with a light dusting of confectioner's sugar that makes it look quite festive. However you chose to top it, this is a breakfast (or dinner) that never fails to please.

Challah French Toast adapted from Barefoot Contessa Family Style

1 loaf challah bread, stale

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups half-n-half or milk

1 tblsp. honey

grated zest of an orange

1/2 tsp. coarse salt

I put all the ingredients, except the bread, into my blender to get it properly aerated but you can just whisk them all together as well. Cut bread into 3/4" slices and place face down in 13x9 pan. Pour custard over slices and let soak for 5 minutes, turning once.

Heat a tablespoon of butter and tablespoon of oil on a griddle over medium-low heat. Add the soaked bread and cook for 4-5 minutes on each side. I prefer this longer cooking over lower heat because I like the custard to be more firm and less, well, custardy. But if you prefer, you can cook it 2-3 minutes per side on medium heat.