Commander's Palace Pain Perdu

Gary and I went to New Orleans last year and loved it. A highlight of the trip was our dinner at Commander's Palace. Gary bought me their cookbook, and a few weeks ago made this French toast, or "pain perdu" from the book. Delicious!

Ingredients

6 medium eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
8 slices day-old French bread, cut 3/4 inch thick on the bias
2 TB butter
1/8 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup cane syrup, molasses, or honey butter
salt and pepper

Directions

1) Whisk eggs with the milk and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Add to egg mixture and whisk until well blended.

2) Place 4 slices of bread into the egg mixture, soaking for 5 seconds on each side. Melt 1 TB butter in a nonstick skillet over high heat. When butter starts to brown (about 2 minutes), put the soaked bread slices in the pan and reduce heat to medium-high. Cook for 1-1.5 minutes on each side until done.

3) Remove slices from pan and keep warm. Wipe pan with a paper towel, melt another TB of butter, and repeat until all the bread has been cooked.

4) Finish the slices with powdered sugar and serve with syrup, molasses, or honey butter.