I’ve always liked French toast, but I never liked it as much as I liked waffles and pancakes…until I tried Hong Kong style French toast.
I tried this for the first time about a year ago, my opinion immediately changed. I loved it so much more than any other French toast, any waffle and any pancake I ever had before.
The other day I was craving it, so here we are!
Video Tutorial
What is Hong Kong style french toast?
If you’ve never had it, or seen it before, let me give a quick explanation.
Hong Kong style French typically starts with thick slices of milk bread. I actually ended up just using regular white bread. I can never find milk bread near me and I didn’t want to bake it. So I used regular white bread.
But it is typically made with milk bread.
These slices are then sandwiched together with some kind of filling. I went with Nutella, but traditionally the filling is peanut butter.
The crust of the sandwich is then cut off, to make the sandwich square. Then it is dipped in eggs and shallowed fried.
I feel like the shallow frying is the biggest difference between this and regular French toast.
Regular French toast is normally pan fried, but shallow frying this gives you a much crispier result.
The toppings are simple, it’s just some condensed milk and some butter.
My explanation makes it seem like a long process, but it’s very quick and easy to make, and the taste is amazing. It’s so warm and crispy!
Ingredients for the French toast
So you don’t need a lot of ingredients for this, here’s what you will need:
- Bread – again milk bread is usually used, but any bread works.
- A filling – like I mentioned I used Nutella, but peanut butter is typically used.
- Eggs
- Granulated sugar – this is optional, the bread is normally just dipped in plain eggs. But I wanted a little extra sweetness.
- Vanilla – also optional. I wanted a little extra flavour but it’s not needed.
Then for the toppings you need some condensed milk and butter.
You can of course top it off with whatever you want, but it does taste amazing with just condensed milk and butter, it doesn’t need much.
A few tips
Only spread a thin layer of filling
Try not to add to spread too much filling onto your bread slices, you only want a thin layer.
As you are frying the French toast, the filling will leak out if you added too much. So keep it thin.
Cut the crusts off
Ok I guess you don’t have to do this, but from what I’ve seen, Hong Kong style French toast always has the crusts off.
I honestly think they do this just so that the toast is perfectly square.
But yeah you don’t need to cut it off, but I did. It was a nice snack whiles I was waiting for the toast to fry.
Don’t soak the bread for too long
Just like regular French toast, we don’t want the bread to become soggy.
So when you dip it into the eggs, just dip is so that all of the sides are covered.
Don’t leave it in there to soak.
Unless you like soggy bread, then you can. If not, just do a quick dip.
Frying the French toast
When it comes to frying this, you want the oil to be around 170c-180c.
Of course I don’t expect you to whip out a thermometer to make some French toast, that is very unnecessary.
Just heat your oil on medium heat for a bit, before adding it in.
You just don’t want to add the French toast into the oil whiles the oil is cold, otherwise it will end up oily.
If you are unsure, add a piece of crust into the oil. It it starts gently bubbling, the oil is ready!
But then after that, leave it on some paper towels, or a wire rack, for a few seconds. so that the excess oil can drain off. Then it is ready to eat.
Here are a few other recipes I posted recently I think you should try:
Hong Kong
Style French Toast
Ingredients
Makes: 2
6-8 slices of milk bread, or any white bread (I used 4 slices for each french toast, but you could use 3)
Some peanut butter (I used Nutella instead)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon granulated sugar, optional
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (also optional)
- Extras:
Some vegetable oil, to fry
Condensed milk, for serving
Butter, also for serving
Directions
- Get 4 slices of bread and spread the filling onto one side of 3 slices. Sandwich all these together, then slice off the crusts of this sandwich.
- Repeat this with the rest of the slices of bread.
- In a shallow bowl, add the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Whisk these together, then leave this aside.
- In a deep pan, heat your vegetable oil over medium heat.
- Dip each side of one of the sandwich in the egg mixture, then fry this until golden brown on both sides. Take this out and leave on a wire rack, or some paper towels, to drain any extra oil.
- Repeat this with the other sandwich.
- Now drizzle as much condensed milk as you want over them, add a slice of butter on top of each one, then enjoy whiles warm!
