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How NYC’s Best French Toast is Made | Made to Order | Bon Appétit
How NYC’s Best French Toast is Made | Made to Order | Bon Appétit
Bon Appétit
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12:11 · Jan 21, 2026
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-
Hi,
I
am
Neil
Kleinberg,
chef,
owner
of
Clinton
Street
Baking
Company
and
Restaurant,
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0:04
- Hi, I am Neil Kleinberg, chef, owner of Clinton Street Baking Company and Restaurant,
0:08
and today we're gonna make the perfect brioche French toast.
0:13
Clinton Street has been here almost 25 years.
0:16
We're just known for making the most delicious breakfast and brunch foods.
0:21
The French toast is one of our top sellers.
0:23
On the weekends, we could sell up to 50 orders a day.
0:27
What makes the perfect French toast is a few components, the batter, the garnish,
0:33
and the maple butter.
0:34
And I'm gonna show you the most important part right now,
0:36
which is our brioche bread.
0:42
This is our brioche bread.
0:44
It's like a white bread enriched with eggs, and egg yolks and butter,
0:48
and it makes it so golden, and so tender and so beautiful.
0:52
And that's what you're gonna taste when you eat the French toast.
0:55
And we like to slice it really nice and thick.
0:58
Beautiful thick slices, two inches, three inches, however you like it.
1:03
If you can't get brioche, challah's a nice stand-in.
1:06
The difference between challah
1:07
and brioche is challah is made with oil
1:09
and it makes it very soft,
1:11
but brioche is made with full butter,
1:14
and you can really taste the butter in
1:16
that bread when you bake it
1:18
and when you cook it.
1:19
If you don't have brioche, you can't get challah, I would go with, like,
1:22
a simple, good quality white bread, a day old French bread,
1:26
but the ultimate is the brioche.
1:28
Downstairs we have a full bakery where we make at least 80 loaves a
1:32
week.
1:33
The shape of the brioche is called the Pullman shape, or a Pullman loaf,
1:37
named after the famous Pullman train cars.
1:40
And they come out like a big square with a little dome on the
1:44
top.
1:44
If you're making this at home, cut the bread a little thick.
1:47
I'm talking an inch and a half to two inches thick.
1:50
The thickness of the bread has a lot to do with how much batter
1:53
is absorbed,
1:54
and when you absorb a good amount of batter, you're absorbing all the flavor.
1:58
If I cook this brioche too thin,
2:01
you're not gonna get any of the fluffiness, the texture,
2:04
and the nuance as if you'd sliced it thick.
2:07
This bread right out of the oven, it's very soft.
2:10
You need to rest it a day
2:12
so that you get a really nice firm texture in between inside.
2:18
But once you dip it in the batter, if it's a day old,
2:21
it just sucks up the batter and it makes it really, really nice.
2:25
Our bread is sliced and it's time to move on to the batter.
2:32
The ratios are very important.
2:34
The biggest mistake people make about the batter is too much milk,
2:38
not enough egg.
2:39
Too much egg, not enough milk.
2:41
It's about the balance.
2:42
We'll start with the eggs and the cream.
2:44
We're using half and half because heavy cream, it's too rich.
2:49
So we use half and half, which is half cream and half milk,
2:52
which makes it a little lighter, a little easier to work with.
2:56
Three or four eggs.
2:58
So I would say the ratio is three parts half
3:00
and half to one part egg.
3:02
I'm gonna just whisk this together
3:04
and you're gonna see the color change a little bit.
3:06
It's a look and feel as well.
3:08
Sometimes the milk and cream are a little richer,
3:11
sometimes your eggs are a little larger than, as you can see,
3:14
it's starting to get a little golden in color.
3:16
The consistency I'm looking for is the consistency of heavy cream,
3:20
and I'm making sure
3:21
that the whites and the yolks are whisked in really nice.
3:24
You can't really overmix this.
3:26
The next thing I'm gonna do is add a little bit of vanilla.
3:29
We use pure, a hundred percent vanilla.
3:32
Home cooks often skip the use of real vanilla extract.
3:35
They'll use an imitation.
3:37
I also like to add a little bit of vanilla paste.
3:40
The vanilla paste is beautiful.
3:42
It has specks of the vanilla bean in it,
3:44
and it makes the batter nice and speckled.
3:48
You can really smell the beautiful vanilla bean flavor.
3:52
This batter should be a little bit sweet,
3:54
so I'm gonna add maybe a half a cup of sugar.
3:57
Then I'm gonna add a nice pinch of cinnamon.
4:00
You want that flavor to come out in the batter.
4:04
Got a beautiful aroma.
4:05
I'm gonna use a pinch of salt.
4:07
The salt pulls together the seasoning of the whole thing,
4:12
and then this beautiful organic lemon oil.
4:15
This is like a lemon extract made from organic lemons
4:19
and also some orange oil.
4:21
There's a lot of nice oils coming out of the orange peel.
4:25
The citrus is adding the nuance, pulling the whole entire flavor profile together.
4:31
And I'm constantly whisking it.
4:32
It keeps the cinnamon integrated into the batter.
4:35
I'm gonna pour the batter gently.
4:38
You see a little bit of cinnamon milk like straggling at the end.
4:41
I'm just going to pour that batter right in there.
4:47
When we go to dip the french toast,
4:51
we're gonna dip it in a square container like that, and then like that.
4:56
See, I'm not dipping it for very long,
4:59
but I'm dipping it enough
5:01
so the brioche is absorbing all of
5:04
that beautiful batter.
5:06
You could even see some of the cinnamon coming up to the top.
5:08
It's nice and soaked.
5:11
The same with this side.
5:12
I'll let it drain off.
5:14
You could actually see it getting porous in here.
5:17
You could actually see the batter entering the middle of the bread,
5:22
and then you'll actually feel the weight.
5:24
It's soaked in the middle, but it's not over soaked.
5:26
You know how sometimes if you're making french toast at home,
5:29
and you don't drain it,
5:31
and you put it in your pan and you get that egg ring around,
5:34
that's bad.
5:35
And that comes from the batter itself,
5:39
not having too much egg in the batter
5:41
and also draining it
5:42
so when that you go to the stove to cook it in your pan,
5:45
you're not gonna have that excess ring coming out of the brioche.
5:50
One more time here.
5:51
You don't wanna soak this too much.
5:53
The brioche is a very light bread.
5:55
You dip it and drain it, and then you wanna move to the stove.
6:02
The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna hit this griddle with some
6:06
clarified butter,
6:07
no milk solids in it, so it's not gonna burn.
6:10
I have the griddle set at about 350.
6:13
If you have something at home like a cast iron pan
6:16
or a thick old griddle
6:17
or an electric griddle,
6:18
that's great too.
6:19
So we're gonna take our dipped brioche.
6:22
We're gonna put it right on the clarified butter,
6:24
and then we're gonna hit it with a little more clarified butter in between
6:28
just to get the nooks
6:29
and crannies going.
6:30
The clarified butter cooks it long enough,
6:33
gets a crust around it without burning it.
6:36
We're gonna add a little bit of whole butter in between the french toast,
6:41
a little knob there, and a little knob there.
6:44
This allows the french toast to get really caramelized on the outside.
6:48
The milk solids from the butter are starting to brown.
6:50
When you're making this at home,
6:52
you just don't want it to be too high of a flame.
6:55
Medium high heat to start, and then a little bit lower to finish.
7:00
If it's too high of a flame,
7:02
the butter's gonna burn before you get that nice color.
7:05
We're getting a nice little bubbly outside.
7:08
The grill is not too hot.
7:11
We're gonna peek a little bit.
7:13
The eggs and butter in the bread helps with the browning process.
7:18
And as you can tell when I flip one,
7:22
you've got that beautiful golden brown color.
7:25
You can even see the cinnamon speckled in there,
7:30
so you can always check the bottom.
7:34
And so we're gonna flip this one, that's a beautiful color.
7:38
You see that really nice ring around that edge of the brioche?
7:43
From the time I put it on the griddle until I flipped it,
7:46
I would say two minutes.
7:49
Maybe that's three minutes.
7:51
This one, it was a little light,
7:53
and maybe I flipped it a little early, but this dish is very forgiving.
7:57
The biggest mistake people make at home is they flip it too many times
8:00
or they're not sure,
8:02
or they dig into this and they're like, oh my God.
8:05
I do a little test.
8:06
You see how it's kind of springing back to form.
8:10
If it doesn't spring back to form, that means it's a little raw inside.
8:14
Remember, there's raw eggs in the batter,
8:16
so you have to give it enough time to cook the eggs through.
8:19
It's kind of like a custard.
8:21
And I like to shingle them to have a three dimensional look.
8:24
And this brioche is perfect because of the thick slices,
8:28
you get a nice lean.
8:34
I see my pan is really, really nice and hot here.
8:37
To make my caramelized bananas, I'm gonna take some brown sugar.
8:42
I'm gonna caramelize it in the pan.
8:45
I'm gonna add a nice spoon of butter.
8:48
This is some sweet butter, unsalted.
8:50
And while the brown sugar is caramelizing with the butter,
8:53
I'm gonna add a little bit of cinnamon sugar.
8:56
We wanna take a ripe banana, cut it in big thick chunks.
9:00
You see it nice and smokey and caramelize the sugar, the cinnamon,
9:04
and then we're gonna add our bananas right to the top.
9:08
We're swirling them around
9:09
and tossing them in the caramel to get them nice
9:11
and coated.
9:13
And then we're gonna kind of put it off to the side.
9:15
The bananas don't need to cook too much.
9:17
Once that's started, we're gonna make our maple butter
9:21
and we're basically just going to heat up a cup.
9:24
There's no substitute for real maple syrup.
9:27
The beauty of this sauce, it doesn't take a lot of time.
9:30
Just heat it on a low to medium heat.
9:34
Add spoons of butter to this sauce while you're whisking it.
9:39
It's basically like a French butter sauce where you're constantly whisking
9:43
and you're constantly adding butter until it's dissolved.
9:48
As I make this sauce,
9:50
the color gets lighter
9:52
and lighter from a dark amber to a light butterscotch kind of color.
9:58
Our sauce is where I want it,
10:00
and we're gonna garnish the French toast with some beautiful Texas pecans.
10:05
This is just a small little non-stick pan,
10:07
and I just like to give them a little toast.
10:09
It releases a lot of the oils and the flavors of the nuts.
10:13
It gives it a nice crunchy top.
10:15
You can toast these well in advance and then kind of toss them.
10:20
One of the things that you don't wanna do is burn them.
10:23
Now, I'd like to go and plate the final dish.
10:26
So with the garnish here with our caramelized bananas,
10:29
we basically just wanna put them on the dish naturally.
10:32
You see how beautiful.
10:34
Then we're gonna put some of our toasted pecans over the top.
10:38
We're gonna pour some of our maple butter right out of the pitcher.
10:42
And then that last shake of the cinnamon sugar is like the most important
10:46
thing for me.
10:47
And here's our signature brioche French toast.
10:49
To me, this is one of my favorite bites.
10:52
It is so soothing, it is so comforting.
10:54
It's something you wanna just eat on a Sunday morning with a cup of
10:58
coffee.
11:02
The inside of the French toast is perfect.
11:05
I see a little bit of moistness in here.
11:07
I know the batter is cooked in the middle,
11:09
but it's still nice and soft.
11:11
I can see the nooks and crannies of the actual brioche,
11:15
so I know it wasn't over soaked.
11:17
Still firm yet spongy texture.
11:21
I'm now tasting all of the little nuances and profiles of the flavors.
11:26
I could taste and smell the aroma of the lemon
11:29
and the orange coming out.
11:31
I get a real nice deep flavor of the vanilla.
11:34
It's not too sweet.
11:36
It's just the balance of the savory.
11:39
The butteriness of the bread.
11:41
The bananas, can really taste the banana, the nuttiness of the pecans.
11:45
The cinnamon sugar at the very end, gives it a nice little sandy texture.
11:49
All of those things make a perfect french toast.
11:52
It's all about experience, it's all about your personal taste, how you like things,
11:57
and how you know your friends and family like it when you make it.
12:04
If I had to choose between love and butter, I would choose butter.
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