(brûléed) custard toast

think creme brûlée in a slice of thick cut french toast

nik sharma, writer of the flavor files, wrote a substack post last year called “the power of a recipe name” about the difficulty of naming a dish. i really felt that with this week’s recipe.

this recipe is somewhere between a creme brûlée and a french toast, as the dish is a true hybrid of the two. this is true in ingredients, visuals, and taste and texture.

1. the ingredients: there is tons of overlap between the ingredients of creme brûlée and french toast, they just use vastly different ratios. in this case, the ingredients meet pretty much in the middle. there is less cream than in a creme brûlée and whole eggs instead of yolks–and inversely–there is more cream than a standard french toast but less egg and no frying in butter.

2. the visual: it looks like creme brûlée in the shape of a piece of toast (especially when you torch it), and it also kinda looks like a piece of french toast (especially when you top with fruit and powdered sugar). it looks like both those things because it is both of those things; it is a custard that is spooned into a hollowed-out thick slice of toast, soaked, and then baked.

3. the taste/texture: like a creme brûlée, it is creamy, silky, and wobbly. however, it isn’t as sweet, it’s lighter, and it sits in a bread bowl instead of a ramekin. it is also like thick custardy french toast but with even more custard than you could ever soak into a slice of bread.

i tried to follow sharma’s formula for naming recipes based on these characteristics, but ranking the words “french toast” “pudding” “custard” “creme brûlée” is actually very difficult in that each is delicious and quite central to conveying what the dish is. i came up with the following names during my brainstorming session:

• creme brûlée toast

• custard toast brûlée

• french (custard) toast (brûlée)

• french toast pudding custard creme brûlée

let me know which title you like best — curious if i chose the right one!

while i still don’t know what i should call this dish, i do know that you should make it if you are a fan of french toast and creme brûlée.

why?

1. the reward-to-effort ratio on this is high. this recipe takes 15-20 minutes of active time (making it the easiest sweet recipe i’ve ever posted here), and it gets made in the oven (so no burning your french toast or needing to hover over the stove).

2. only 1 egg is used per 2 people.

3. this hybrid dish is a great option for a decadent breakfast or dessert. for breakfast, i recommend serving it with fruit and a sprinkle of granola. for dessert, i highly recommend brûlée-ing it. instructions for both options are in the following recipe.

there will also be a good amount of leftover bread from scooping out the filling, and with it, you can make the best bread crumbs you’ve ever tasted (i made chicken milanese with mine last night).

one final note: i always recommend reading a recipe in advance, and this is no exception. while the recipe is easy, it does require some planning as you will need to do all of your cooking the day before to give the custard enough time to soak into the bread. this also means that on the day of serving all you need to do is bake.