French toast does not discriminate. You can make it with supermarket sandwich bread or thick-cut slices from a fancy loaf. Even pound cake is fair game. If you can soak it in custard and fry it in a butter-slicked pan, you can French toast it.
And stale pandesal? Absolutely. Ryle's mom makes a rich and simple soak with eggs and three milks: fresh milk, evaporated milk, and condensed milk. Make sure to slice and open up your pandesal—exposing its soft interior will help it hold more custard.
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup fresh milk
- ½ cup evaporated milk
- ½ cup condensed milk, plus more for serving
- ¼ tsp salt
- 4 pieces day-old pandesal
- 1–2 tbsp unsalted butter
Prepare milk soak: Add eggs, fresh milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and salt in a wide bowl or tray. Use a whisk or a fork to beat the eggs, whisking until mixture is smooth and well combined.
Prepare pandesal: Slice pandesal crosswise with a bread knife. This exposes the soft interior crumb, allowing the bread to soak up the egg-milk mixture like a sponge.
Add pandesal slices to the egg-milk mixture. Let the bread soak for at least 1 minute. If preparing ahead of time, you can let the bread sit overnight in the fridge.
Cook and serve: Melt 1 tbsp unsalted butter in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Working in batches, add soaked pandesal halves to the pan. Cook until the bottoms are golden brown and crisp, 2–4 minutes. Flip to cook the second side, another 2–4 minutes. Repeat with remaining pandesal slices, adding 1 tbsp of butter to the pan after every batch.
Serve warm with drizzled condensed milk, powdered sugar, or honey.
