How can I make restaurant quality French Toast at home?

I've never eaten french toast at IHOP, but I've spent a good bit of time in France, and have a good idea how they make it.

If you like it sweet, don't use any regular bread, find a loaf of brioche (kind of like sweet challah). Here's a good recipe from epicurious.com:

Ingredients:

1 cup half & half

2 eggs

1 Tablespoon sugar

pinch cinnamon

pinch mace

pinch cardamon

pinch salt

day old brioche (thick sliced)

Directions:

Combine half and half, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, mace, cardamon, and salt and mix them into a smooth batter.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat with a teaspoon of butter. Dip the bread into the batter, coating both sides evenly. Fry the slices on one side until evenly browned; and then turn and brown the other side. Serve immediately.

Vanilla-Bourbon Maple Syrup:

1 cup high quality maple syrup

2 Tablespoons of dark bourbon

3 vanilla beans (split in half)

Split the vanilla beans scraping out the seeds and flambe the beans and seeds in bourbon. Combine with high quality maple syrup and pour over Brioche French Toast.

Maybe it's because of Canada's French population, but French toast is a common breakfast dish here and not nearly as complicated as Americans make it out to be. To start with, the "French toast" you're getting at the restaurants are pretty much just flat cakes packed with fillers, tons of sugar, msg, polysorbate 80, exc, exc, exc. However, there are a few things that can make French Toast nice at home.

1. Bread should be white, regular bread. Whole wheat will ruin the taste.

2. Instead of milk, use cream.

3. Try just using the yolks instead of the white.

4. Be careful with the amount of cinnamon. Too much is possible.

5. Vanilla, cream, yolks, cinnamon and one and a half teaspoons of light brown sugar should be whisked in one bowl.

6. Place the plain piece of bread and let the mixture soak through.

7. Place on a medium heat, non-stick pan with one tablespoon of melted butter; I say medium heat, not high heat because that will burn the outside and leave the inside raw.

8. Dust with confectioners sugar and put raspberries or strawberries for garnishes.

Love your first name, btw ;)

You need to use that Texas toast bread and don't use wheat bread - sorry - It's nasty to me.Don't let the bread sit in the egg mixture for more than a minute.

You don't have a restaurant grill and your frying pan will work. The restaurants probably use a mix with a lot of sugar in the mix. You can add more sugar or syrup o the eggs

You' have been watching to many IHOP commercials. It's like the Hollywood remake of a novel they got to cut corners.

There are so many subliminal messages in those commercials that you think that IHOP and diners are good.

The french toast that you can make at home is vastly greater than IHOP or any diner.

Their bread is frozen, the egg's, aren't the greatest and you know they get the cheapest milk. I don't dare go any farther.

I worked at a brekfast restaurant and I was suprised to see that we only used the egg yolks(yellows) for french toast. Heavy cream or whole milk, a little cinnomon and a touch of honey.

also use texas sliced bread. Its much thicker.

Use real french bread for french toast. Use it when it is a day old or stale, that is how the french started doing it.

Slice it thick, and use oil to fry it in.

It should not taste "sweet" if it is made properly, the sweet should only come from the syrup.

1) Dont use wheat bread. Thats yucky. Only texas toast for French toast...

2) Skip the egg whites and don't use skim milk in your mix....

Use white bread. Dip it in just eggs with a tinny bit of cinnamon and then place it in a frying pan on a stove with just a little bit of butter. Cook it on high. Flip it when one side is finished and then pull it out and put it on a plate when the other side is finished.

soak the bread in the egg mix longer, and add a little heavy cream too.

use hawaiian bread and put some brown sugar in the mixture