Challah French Toast

I think I hear something. Wait--could it be? No--YES. YES IT IS! IT'S THE LAST RECIPE IN THE BREAKFAST SECTION!!

Thank you, thank you sweet hairy baby Jesus for navigating me through this difficult period of my life. In exchange, I offer you my final recipe, for Challah French Toast from my parents' friends the Reinherzes.

Does it involve refrigerating overnight? Yes, of course it does. Does it involve trips to the grocery story for massive quantities of eggs? Absolutely. Did I injure myself in the course of making it? How could I not?

Challah French Toast is pretty straightforward, just that it specifies you use challah bread instead of any old kind of bread. Personally, I'm a pretty big fan of challah, which means that I would likely prefer use it for a sandwich than to cook it beyond recognition and douse it in egg soup. But I don't have much of a choice these days.

It's easy to make, and came out fine and tasting pretty much like normal French toast. Leaving me to wonder - why all the effort and the soaking overnight when you could just, you know, make normal French toast? I will say that I got smart and decided to halve the recipe because after all these brinners, there was basically no way we were going to get through the enormous portion this recipe usually makes.

In any event, who really cares? Because this is the LAST BREAKFAST RECIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. HOO-AH.

Chall-ah

Challah French Toast

1 loaf challah, thickly cut (is there any other way?)
8 eggs
3 cups milk
4 tsp sugar
1 tbsp vanilla (which delightedly finished off one of my three [??] vanilla bottles)

Spray a large baking pan (9 x 13 or larger) with shortening. Actually, select a smaller baking pan because you were halving the recipe, and spray it with olive oil spray. You are a renegade.

Mix above ingredients together. Put challah slices in pan and cover with egg mixture. Sprinkle top with cinnamon & sugar. Think - really? Actually cinnamon? Hmm, I only have stick cinnamon and cinnamon sugar. Decide to cut your losses and go straight for the cinnamon sugar, thus eliminating the sugar. You are amazing.

Dot with butter overall. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight--or for a few hours during the afternoon since you are making this for dinner and you don't think that special night fairies that visit the refrigerator are the missing ingredient, rather just a few hours of soaking time in the fridge.

Bake with foil cover 45 mins @ 325 while hungry Josh grouses about 'all these French toast recipes that just make it take longer.' Uncover and burn yourself with steam. Bake 15 minutes longer to brown.

Serve with warm syrup to grumpy Josh. CELEBRATE YOU HAVE FINISHED THE BREAKFAST SECTION!!!!!!!

Arlene Reinherz note: You can freeze the leftovers. This, I will admit, is a good note.