Chef's Corner: A Brunch to Savor - Custard French Toast

Toasted. Fluffy. Sweet. These adjectives combined describe the best French toast I have ever tasted at a well-known Sacramento institution - Tower Cafe. Tower's french toast is remarkable. The thick slices of bread are soaked in custard overnight and cooked to perfection; the outside is crispy and toasted and the inside is fluffy and sweet. You have to taste it to believe how truly good it is.

Tower Cafe is a quaint little eatery near downtown Sacramento but can be a bit difficult to get to at times, especially on weekends where the line runs from inside the door to the corner of the block. This is the main reason why I wanted a copycat recipe I could make at home for those days I wasn't in Sacramento and/or didn't want to endure a long wait.

I looked online and was able to develop my own recipe after searching out how to make a good custard mix. To start off, I always use fresh or day-old Italian bread. Acme Bread is delicious but Grace Baking Italian works just as well.

I sliced the bread at an angle to obtain the long slices of bread you get at Tower.

I mixed eggs, whipping cream, vanilla, milk, sugar, cinnamon and a dash of salt in a bowl.   

I poured the resulting custard mixture into a flat pan and lay the sliced pieces of bread flat in the pan. After 30 minutes, I flipped the bread so that the other side can absorb the custard mixture as well.

I then toasted the french toast until it was crispy and brown on both sides.

With just a slight pour of maple syrup, the toasted, fluffy sweet bread just seemed to melt with every bite. 

This Custard French Toast tastes every bit as good as Tower, although there is something to be said about savoring the real deal. However, this substitute will serve us well whenever we have a craving for a sweet brunch treat and can't make the trek to my absolute favorite brunch place in Sacramento.