# Europe Forum > European Culture & History > European food and recipes >  Panettone French Toast

## Angela

I rarely have left over Panettone, because in addition to eating a slice as is with a coffee, I toast it and put a smear of butter on it. 

However, sometimes, someone has gifted you with one that isn't quite the best quality, or is really old and so is dry, and so I make French toast out of it. (The ones on sale after Christmas are also quite dry sometimes, so they're good for this.) I've wound up doing this a lot if quite a few people come over on New Year's Day morning. 

I like Ina Garden's egg custard recipe for when she uses Challah bread for French toast. I would only add the orange zest if I were using Pandoro, because of course the Panettone already has the aromatic fruits. For company I would also use Half and Half.

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## Jovialis

My mother brought us this one last night, it was really tasty:

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## Carlos

For us, French toast is more typical at Easter, but nowadays the seasons are not so respected for typical seasonal dishes.


I like flan and custard anyway because I eat everything, but I prefer them without eggs, I don't want the egg to kill the taste of the dairy.

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## Angela

I hate the smell of eggs, and don't eat them much at all, but you really need some eggs for custard, which I very much like (flan and especially creme brulee). If the proportions are right, the dairy tase will come through.

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## Carlos

I love the egg in any format but curiously enough, I prefer it not to be in the flan.

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## Angela

I was intrigued by that, so I looked up the recipes for flan and creme brulee, the latter of which does have a dairy taste to me, and is my preference. If these lists of ingredients are correct, flan uses the whole egg and a lot more sugar. Maybe that "masks" or covers the dairy taste?

Spanish flan

1 1/2 cups 300g of sugar4 large eggs2 cups 480ml milk (full fat)2 teaspoons 10ml vanilla extract


Real Crème Brulee
Whole Milk
1 Cup (250 ml)

Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Cup (250 ml) (35% fat content)

Pure Vanilla Extract (or Vanilla Bean)
1 Tablespoon (15g) (or 1 vanilla bean split & scraped)

Egg Yolks
4 large (yolks only)

Granulated White Sugar
⅓ Cup plus 2 Tablespoons (90 grams)

Brown Sugar
¼ Cup (50 grams) (for caramelization)



Mexican flan is a whole other thing, as it's made with evaporated and condensed milk. I don't like it very much because it's way too sweet among other things.


Maybe someone else does, but I don't know of a precise Italian equivalent. The closest would be zabaglione, which is a liquid, or crema pasticcera, which is used in pastry and is thickened by flour; I've seen rice, corn, or wheat flour added.

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## Carlos

My mother had always made homemade flan, but over the decades industrial flan broke into the market and whenever I had gone to eat at a restaurant or bought an industrial flan, it was usually with eggs. On one occasion I told my mother why don't you make flan with eggs next time and she said: "No, it's better without eggs. 

So it had to be as they had always done at home so I never insisted again because I truly agreed with her.

It was my grandmother who taught her to cook and I will try to find out if her sisters did too.

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## Angela

^^I'd be interesting in knowing whether they used at least the yolks; otherwise it's hard to understand how they thickened it. Adding flour wouldn't produce a flan or creme brulee consistency.

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## Carlos

> ^^I'd be interesting in knowing whether they used at least the yolks; otherwise it's hard to understand how they thickened it. Adding flour wouldn't produce a flan or creme brulee consistency.


I have been doing research and have found the answer.

The origin is the 50's. Obviously, I was not born for a long time, but the thing is that in those years, sporadically in my country there were ration cards and eggs were scarce, so a chemist created a compound with which to replace the eggs with agar-agar.


Then a Galician businessman commercialized it and adapted it for custard so it must have been successful among the public and for many, as it is my case, the original flavor of the custard is with a milky flavor because they had never tried the egg flavor or much later as it is my case.

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## Angela

> I have been doing research and have found the answer.
> 
> The origin is the 50's. Obviously, I was not born for a long time, but the thing is that in those years, sporadically in my country there were ration cards and eggs were scarce, so a chemist created a compound with which to replace the eggs with agar-agar.
> 
> 
> Then a Galician businessman commercialized it and adapted it for custard so it must have been successful among the public and for many, as it is my case, the original flavor of the custard is with a milky flavor because they had never tried the egg flavor or much later as it is my case.


Brilliant. There's the answer. I had meant to ask if gelatin might have been used. So, you're basically talking about what we call "panna cotta" or cooked cream and which is related to biancomangiare or what the English and French call blancmange. The latter uses powdery starches as the thickener.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDIM-zoqnE4

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