Why Is My French Toast Soggy? (3 Common Mistakes)

Nothing like a crisp, golden piece of French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar or drizzled with maple syrup for brunch. However, when you cook French toast at home, it may occasionally come out charred on the outside and uncomfortably mushy on the side.

What makes French Toast soggy?

If you use too thin, fresh, and fragile a piece of bread, your French toast will get mushy. Other possible reasons include using too much milk in the custard, using skim milk, and soaking the bread for too long. French toast will get mushy if it is cooked at an excessively high temperature, scorching the surface while leaving the middle underdone.

Transforming bread and eggs into a magnificent dinner that can be paired with fruit, cream, bacon, and a glass of bubbly at any time of day or night is a treat. It’s not only tasty, but it also makes you feel good about reusing leftover bread.

But what if your French toast doesn’t turn out to be the fried egg-rich delicacy you were hoping for? Let’s take a look at why French toast becomes mushy.

Why French Toast Gets Soggy

Crisp and golden on the exterior, creamy and fluffy on the inside, is the ultimate piece of French toast.

When your slices are charred on the surface and mushy on the interior, something is wrong: either the ingredients (the bread or the egg and milk custard) or the method of cooking.

A mushy piece of French toast indicates that the custard hasn’t set correctly and that the bread and eggs are undercooked. Aside from the unattractive texture, eating underdone French toast poses a food safety risk due to the presence of raw eggs.

What are the common French toast faults, and how can you prevent them?

Soggy French Toast Mistake 1: The Bread

The bread is the cornerstone of any French toast. A firm piece of day-old bread, especially an egg-based, buttery loaf, is required for the ultimate French toast.

The Wrong Type of Bread

One of the most common errors people make while making French toast is using the incorrect kind of bread.

Because it is soft, plain white bread may seem to be great. Flimsy, fluffy bread with no strong crust, on the other hand, is too weak to soak up and retain the custard. This generic bread will not only break before you can cook it, but it will also yield flavorless, mushy French toast.

Crusty, rustic bread with plenty of big holes is another culprit for mushy French toast. Although this rustic bread is heartier and more flavorful, the large holes trap dollops of custard and result in mushy toast.

To avoid soggy French toast, select a spongy bread that can absorb enough custard to form a creamy slice of toast while remaining robust and thick enough not to collapse in the pan.

Consider the breads used for French toast on brunch menus. Brioche, challah, Pullman loaf, ciabatta, French loaf, croissants, and even banana bread are perfect breads for French toast because they have body, heaviness, a nice crumb, and a crust.

Fresh Bread

Another reason of soggy French toast is using excessively fresh and soft bread. The greatest French toast is cooked using day-old bread, even if it is somewhat stale.

The solution to this French toast secret is in the name: in France, this dessert-like meal is known as pain perdu, which translates as lost bread. In other words, French toast is created from bread that would otherwise be wasted or thrown away.

Yes, like the Italian bread salad panzanella, this gourmet breakfast meal was initially a housewife’s means of stretching the food budget by not wasting a single crumb.

You’ve undoubtedly experienced why fresh bread doesn’t make the ideal French toast: it becomes mushy as soon as you dip it into your custard.

Instead, use bread that has been sitting out for a day or two. If you’re making French toast, put the bread out on the counter for a couple of hours or in a cool oven overnight. Even if the stove is turned off, it will dry out.

Try this method if you don’t have any stale-ish bread. Preheat the oven to 275°F and toast the sliced bread for 10 minutes on a baking sheet. Voila! Dry bread that is ideal for French toast.

Thinly Sliced Bread

Even if you choose a substantial, dry piece of bread, slicing it too thinly can result in mushy French toast.

Remember that the bread has to soak up the custard. Thin pieces will break easily and burn rapidly, so remove them from the pan while they’re still warm.

The perfect slice is an inch thick and no thinner. Bread slicers at supermarkets and bakeries prefer to slice bread thinner, so you’ll have to slice it manually.

Thickly Sliced Bread

Too thin a slice of bread, like too thick a piece, results in mushy French toast.

Although a thick piece of bread will absorb the custard well, it will not cook through to the center, leaving a soggy core.

To prevent this issue, never slice bread thicker than one inch for French toast.

Soggy French Toast Mistake 2: The Custard

The egg and milk combination, known as the custard, is the second essential component of the ideal French toast. (Whether or not to use sugar in this custard is a another discussion; fortunately, it has no effect on the sogginess or lack thereof.)

The egg-to-milk ratio, as well as the amount of time the bread soaks in the custard, are crucial to preventing sogginess. It would be preferable if you used whole milk rather than skim milk.

Too Much Milk

The most common error in making custard for French toast is adding too much milk to the eggs.

Too much milk will result in mushy French toast because the bread absorbs the milk first, leaving the egg on the top. The egg will cook too rapidly, and the milky bread will cook too slowly, resulting in an unpleasant mix of charred crust and mushy center.

For French toast custard, use a cup of milk for every big egg you use. This ratio is determined by the size of your eggs, however you should use less milk than egg, rather than equal amounts. The milk’s purpose is to thin the custard, not to replace the egg.

Skim Milk

Using skim milk might result in mushy French toast since the milk stays watery while it cooks. The fat is required to make the French toast creamy.

Unfortunately, plant-based milk also produces watery French toast, so it is best avoided. If you must avoid dairy, use a thick almond or cashew milk.

For the most indulgent French toast, add full-fat milk, half-and-half, or even cream.

Soaked Too Long

The amount of time your bread soaks in the custard is also important to the success of your French toast.

If you soak your bread in custard for too long, it will absorb too much of it, and you will discover your bread swimming in custard in the pan. This custard will take too long to set, leaving you with overdone on the outside but soggy on the inside French toast.

Nobody likes dry French toast, so soak rather than dip the bread in the custard to ensure that the bread absorbs all of the delightful moisture and taste of the eggs and milk.

Depending on how thickly sliced and dry your bread is, soak it in custard for around 15 to 20 seconds each side. If you choose to bake rather than fry your French toast, you may leave it in the oven for a little longer.

Lift the bread out of the custard and let the excess to fall back into the custard before placing it on the pan to avoid sogginess produced by oversoaking.

Soggy French Toast Mistake 3: The Frying

After you’ve made your beautiful custard-infused bread, it’s time to fry it. Sogginess may be caused by a number of factors, including pan heat, overcooking or undercooking your French toast, and not using the proper frying oil.

Cooked Too Hot

The first error in making French toast is using an overly hot pan.

Because the bread is wet, it must be baked over medium heat to ensure that the middle is thoroughly cooked. If you cook French toast too hot, the crust will burn, particularly if your custard contains sugar, which caramelizes and burns fast. Then you’ll want to yank the toast from the skillet, only to discover a wet centre.

Fried With Butter

If you use the improper fat for frying, you risk having an undercooked interior.Aside from cooking the French toast at an excessively high temperature, you may also wind up with an overdone exterior.

There’s a solid reason why most French toast recipes advocate using butter for frying. The golden hue and creamy taste of butter are synonymous with French toast.

However, because to the high butterfat content, butter has a low burn point and may quickly brown and smoke, leaving your French toast scorched yet underdone.

To keep the buttery flavor, fry using a mixture of butter and a neutral cooking oil (such as canola, rapeseed, or clarified coconut oil). Ghee, or clarified butter, is a wonderful choice since it has the buttery taste of burned butter without the bitterness.

Too Much Oil

When cooking French toast, it’s a good idea to substitute part of the butter with oil. Using too much fat for frying, on the other hand, will result in greasy, mushy French toast.

This is bread, not donuts, therefore frying French toast does not need a heavy coating of fat and oil. If you use a nonstick pan, you’ll just need a little quantity of grease for taste.

To prevent unpleasant browning, wipe the pan clear of oil and butter after each round of toasting and start with new fats.

Undercooked

All soggy French toast is, in essence, undercooked. The sogginess indicates that the custard has not set properly.

Overheating your French toast typically results in undercooked French toast. However, utilizing a low heat might result in undercooked French toast.

Cooking French toast over medium to medium-high heat for three to four minutes each side is ideal.

Didn’t Use the Oven

Baking your French toast in the oven is a French toast secret that prevents sogginess caused by improper cooking methods.

This approach is very useful for cooking French toast for a big party. This is how you do it:

• Preheat your oven to 375F.
• Use nonstick baking mats or baking paper to line baking sheets.
• Prepare your French toast as normal, then place the wet slices on baking pans.
• Bake the French toast for approximately 12 minutes, or until the centers are firm.
• Increase the oven temperature to broil for two to three minutes, or until the outsides of the French toast are crispy and golden.
• Serve hot, with sugar or syrup.

Final Thoughts

French toast is often mushy because it is cooked with thin slices of generic white bread that have been unduly soaked in a milky concoction and fried in butter over a high heat.

To create the greatest French toast at home, soak thick slices of a thickly crumbed baguette in an egg-rich custard before frying or baking at medium heat in butter and oil.