If you follow me on Twitter and Instagram, I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve been celebrating my birthday.
To start my birthday off right, I obviously needed a delicious, decadent breakfast.
I absolutely adore French Toast and have enjoyed many variations of the dish. One of the my favourites was at a Victorian Post Office turned Bistro tucked into a corner of Bethesda, Maryland called Black Market Bistro. I decided this would be the perfect breakfast treat and duplicated the recipe with a few twists of my own.

The best part of French Toast is that you can use any type of bread you like, and it will still taste delicious. I used brioche to make my French Toast extra decadent, but feel free to use anything from sourdough to challah. The bread should be at least one day old because the older it is, the better it holds up once being submerged into your mixture.

Ingredients:
2 slices of delicious bread of your choice
1 large egg
1 dash of milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp brown sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 orange to zest
knob of butter
maple syrup
optional: scrape in some vanilla beans to make it that much more decadent

Directions:
1. Add your egg, milk, vanilla, sugar, half the orange zest, and salt to a bowl and beat together until well mixed.

2. Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat, and add a knob of butter to coat the bottom of the pan. You could use nonstick spray, but this is decadent French Toast, not diet French Toast.

3. Place a slice of brioche into your egg mixture and allow the bread to soak for about 10 seconds. Flip the bread and soak the other side for the same amount of time, and squish it slightly to ensure maximum soakage.

4. Place the egg soaked brioche onto your heated pan and cook on both sides until golden brown. About 1-2 minutes per side.

5. Plate your golden brown French Toast and zest more orange over the top. This gives an incredible citrus flavour to cut the sweetness of the French Toast. Drizzle some maple syrup over the top and eat immediately.
As if you could wait and resist this decadent, simple masterpiece.

Happy Birthday to me! Enjoy!