A little of a celebration should be made of the Sunday brunch. After all, who wouldn’t want a delectable delicacy that can be prepared with the spare time that they have available to them?
Today, we are going to evaluate two breakfast standards: French toast and pancakes. We’ll evaluate them based on a number of factors, such as the amount of time it takes to prepare the ingredients, the amount of time it takes to cook the ingredients, the variety of ingredients involved, and the amount of cleanup that is necessary once you’ve completed the recipe.
If you have a particular person or team that you are pulling for, know that we are on your side! We were all brought up eating a Sunday special meal, and we’d be thrilled if it took first place.
Just try to have an open mind, and there’s a chance that you’ll walk away with a newfound appreciation for the food that you are less acquainted with.
Contents
French Toast
It is a sweet dessert that was initially produced to salvage bread that had gone stale and give it a new lease of life. It was originally developed from the French cuisine pain perdu, which roughly translates to “lost bread.”
It’s possible that this seems like less of an issue right now. Nevertheless, in the past, when loaves of bread were cooked with whole wheat flour, they had a shorter shelf life since dough conditioners and advances in food science did not yet exist.
At this point, the French culinary tradition comes into play; why not coat it in a combination of eggs and milk first, and then cook it in butter? Nothing can have an unpleasant flavor after being coated in custard and cooked in butter.
Now that we’ve established that, let’s take a closer look at the French toast and see what it has going for it.
Prep Time
If you already have stale bread in your kitchen, making French toast is the ideal alternative for a brunch at the last minute. The objective here is to have the bread as dry as possible so that it may absorb as much of the egg custard as it possibly can.
If this is the case, the length of time it will take you to prepare the dish will be less than five minutes. This is the amount of time it will take you to gather the ingredients, which include eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla essence, and maybe a sprinkling of cinnamon or nutmeg—or both!
After that, it’s just a question of mixing all of the ingredients together using a whisk to remove any lumps from the egg whites and then dipping the bread into the mixture. It really is that easy!
Don’t be concerned about your bread if it’s still fresh! Simply place it in an oven preheated to 125 degrees Fahrenheit and leave it there for 30–40 minutes, or until it is dry but not completely brittle. After that, everything will return to normal.
Cook Time
When making French toast, a temperature of medium-low and a generous quantity of butter (or, even better, clarified butter) are preferred. Simply obtain a big pan or griddle that does not stick, preferably made of cast iron, add the butter, wait for it to start foaming somewhat, and then add the toast.
You may set up a station adjacent to the frying pan in which you have the stale bread and a bowl of custard that is just slightly deeper than the bread. First, give both sides of the bread a short dipping, and then you may proceed.
It is essential not to soak the bread for an extended period of time, since this can cause it to fall apart when you attempt to place it in the pan or turn it over. In addition, if the exterior of the French toast browns too quickly, over-soaking the bread in the egg custard might cause the centre of the French toast to stay uncooked.
In most cases, it will take roughly three minutes on each side. Therefore, depending on how many people you’re preparing food for and the size of your pan, finishing a modest batch may not take as long as you’d expect.
Skill Level
The preparation of French toast does not need for a great deal of accuracy, making it an ideal dish for novice cooks who do not have a lot of expertise or confidence in the kitchen.
All that is required is the correct proportion of the various components, and the measurements need not be precise for the end result to be satisfying. You won’t be baking anything here; you’ll simply be producing a tasty dessert by combining a variety of ingredients with a whisk.
Varieties
Recently, French toast has been experiencing something of a renaissance, and this may be attributed to the proliferation of a dizzying number of variants, each of which takes the traditional combination of bread and custard to new heights of gastronomic achievement.
Don’t get me wrong—I like the straightforward fare, especially when it’s topped with a generous helping of maple syrup. However, if you tasted crispy French toast topped with cereal, graham cracker crumbs, or Panko breadcrumbs, you would comprehend what I’m talking about.
That’s not even mentioning the insanity-inducing variations that are packed with anything from peanut butter and jelly to Nutella and hazelnuts. Those are so delicious that it should be illegal.
Do you need me to remind you that you may add savory ingredients to your French toast as well? Imagine a sandwich that is similar to the Croque Monsieur but with ham and cheese that is seeping out of the bread that is custardy and savory. You don’t need to exclude the syrup if you make this recipe, either!
Cleanup
The only things you need to make French toast are a bowl and a whisk for the components of the custard, a shallow dish to dip the bread in, and maybe a sheet pan to keep the completed toast warm while the rest of the batch is being made.
That’s not a very large number of pots and pans. While you are soaking the bread in the custard and transferring it to the pan, do your best not to make a mess of things.
Pancakes
It’s likely that every father in the history of the world has at least once attempted to make pancakes. There’s something about being in the kitchen at eight in the morning on a Sunday, flipping pancakes, that just shouts “I care about you.”
In such case, making someone you care about a delicious stack of pancakes is an excellent method to express your sentiment. Once you get the hang of it, making pancakes may be a labor-intensive process that also demands a little bit of talent, but once you’ve gotten the feel of it, it’s a snap.
Now, let’s find out whether pancakes come out on top in this competition.
Prep Time
Recipes for pancake batter are quite variable because of the many different elements involved. If you’re making them from a pancake mix (no shade, but why?) it should take you less than three minutes to smooth out any lumps in the batter.
After you have combined all of the ingredients, the batter for a conventional buttermilk pancake made from home needs some time to rest, around ten minutes. As a result, the flour will have more time to absorb moisture, and the pancake’s texture will become more uniform.
There is also a role to play for leavening agents in this scenario. Baking powder is the standard leavening ingredient, but other recipes call for baking soda as well. Other recipes, such as those for French crepes, omit leavening entirely, which means the batter needs more time to rest and hydrate before being used.
Cook Time
The wonderful thing about pancakes is that they come with their own timer already installed. It is time to flip the pancake when you begin to see the formation of little bubbles along the outside ring of the pancake.
However, they do need a little of time to cook, particularly if you are planning to make a big quantity for the whole family. Just make sure you’re OK standing about in the kitchen for at least an hour.
Skill Level
When using a pancake mix, whipping up a batch of pancake batter to make wonderful, airy pancakes in a matter of minutes requires very little in the way of culinary expertise. But if you want to manufacture them from scratch, you need be prepared to make some mistakes along the way.
The batter for pancakes may either be excessively thick, in which case the resulting pancakes will be dense and stodgy, or too thin, in which case they will spread out like crepes. To get the desired consistency, you will need to experiment with different wet-to-dry ratios, which is particularly important considering that these factors are influenced by the relative humidity of the environment.
You will, however, get the hang of it once some time has passed. After that, it will become more obvious if you need to make the necessary adjustments by adding a little bit more milk or a little bit more flour.
Another important consideration is the volume of needed mixing. Pancakes that are chewy and rubbery might be the consequence of overmixing the batter, even though clumps of flour are something you definitely want to avoid.
This is all due to gluten, a kind of protein that is present in wheat flour and increases in concentration as the batter is mixed more thoroughly. This results in the batter having a chewy consistency due to the formation of networks of elastic threads throughout the mixture.
You’ll acquire the knack of mixing the dough for the appropriate amount of time until the flour is completely incorporated into the batter as you gain experience in the kitchen. Still, pancakes take certain abilities to perfect.
Varieties
Mix-ins for pancakes may be as varied as chocolate chips, blueberries, or even bacon pieces, and the possibilities are almost endless. (do you recall the fad in the food industry?)
However, this is not the end of the story. In today’s world, the pancake batter itself is the focus of a great deal of research and development.
You may be familiar with the Japanese pancakes known as souffle pancakes because of their airy texture and the way they move when prodded. To make these, first a significant amount of egg whites are beaten until they form firm peaks, and then the beaten egg whites are gently folded into the batter.
The resulting pancakes are custardy and fluffy, but not everyone agrees that they should be classified as pancakes at all. They do not have the same flavor profile as regular pancakes, and some individuals believe that they have an eggy flavor that is too strong for their tastes.
French crepes, on the other hand, are made without any leavening at all and are often consumed filled or decorated with a variety of toppings. Crepes are a French specialty. They are gaining a bit of a cult following all over the globe and may be prepared in either a savory or a sweet manner.
Cleanup
If you want to make pancakes in the conventional manner, you will simply need a bowl and a whisk. If, on the other hand, you want to try your hand at making a souffle, you’ll need to have a hand mixer or a stand mixer ready.
A griddle is the ideal surface for cooking, but any big pan that does not adhere to the food will do. To ensure that they are all the same size, measure each one with a quarter or half cup cup.
You have to be extremely cautious not to get the batter all over the place while you are pouring it because you won’t want to have to clean it up!
Final Thoughts
The dispute between French toast and pancakes may become rather heated. On the other hand, as we saw in the preceding summary comparison, each one of them has both advantages and disadvantages; hence, the choice relies entirely on the kinds of foods that you want to prepare and consume.
The preparation of French toast is less challenging than that of pancakes, which provide a far wider range of options and need a more diverse skill set to prepare well. Regardless of what it is you decide to make, we hope you have fun with it!