Orange-Vanilla French Toast

Jump to Recipe We’re poking along making the Thanksgiving feast and decided to start with a nice brunch. This was the star, in my opinion – fragrant and decadent, yet quick and easy to mix up.

I found the recipe on Karen Bove’s food blog “Our Life in the Kitchen” and kept it pretty much the same, though the first time I used some slightly sour half & half and liked the richness it added.

This time I had some half & half that was slightly expired this time but still sealed up, so I mixed it with milk to make it a bit lighter and match the quantities. We also like to use Mexican vanilla extract, which gives it a fruitier sweetness. Delicious!

Orange Vanilla French Toast

Servings: 4-6
Time: 2hr 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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2 cups half & half
1/2 cup milk
5 eggs
grated peel of 1 orange
juice from 1 orange
2 tsp. Mexican vanilla extract

Soak slices of bread in the batter, then lay on a hot buttered griddle and sprinkle tops with cinnamon, if you like. We used some slightly dry challah bread and had to cook it longer since it really soaked up the batter. The first time we used the sourdough bread (as pictured) and it was really hard, but had lots of holes so it cooked faster.

I’m not really a fan of the texture of bread pudding, but I think this would be a pretty good flavor – mix some chunks of dried bread with raisins and the batter, soak overnight and bake in the morning.

So good! These pictures are from an earlier batch last spring, but this makes it easier to post.

If the images below don’t work for you, find the photos on my flickr stream here.

Orange Vanilla French Toast - Ingredients — Ingredients

Slicing Bread for French Toast — Sliced Bread

Grating Oranges for French Toast — grating orange peel

Orange Vanilla French Toast — soaking the slices

2 Comments Add yours

karenbove says:

December 30, 2011 at 3:42 pm

Thanks for the shout-out. I’m so glad you like the recipe. It’s one I haven’t made in a while this last holiday weekend might be a good time for a nice brunch.