How Jacques Pépin Uses Melted Ice Cream To Make 5-Star French Toast

Who'da imagined ice cream could become a legit part of a French toast breakfast? But, when celebrity chef Jacques Pépin makes this morning staple, a plate full of melted French vanilla ice cream becomes a crucial ingredient. Pépin resorted to using melted ice cream to make his French toast to save time when he was the breakfast cook at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris. 

Here's why this is such a time-saving trick. French vanilla ice cream, the kind he used, contains most of the ingredients that a basic French toast recipe calls for: milk or heavy cream, egg yolks, and vanilla flavor. All he needed to do was immerse his bread in the melted vanilla soup and plop ice-cream-coated bread into a pan that he'd already prepped with melted butter.

By using the ice cream in this way, Pépin wasn't required to prepare each item separately. Every ingredient that French toast requires is already mixed up and in the proper proportions in French vanilla ice cream. Not having to crack the eggs and mix them with milk and other ingredients saves time. When time is of the essence, as it would be for a morning chef in a busy restaurant, it's important to take all the shortcuts one can get.

It's important to reiterate that you can't use just any vanilla ice cream for this hack. The difference in French ice cream lies in the eggs, or more specifically, the egg yolks. French vanilla ice cream is actually closer to what Americans call frozen custard (which is different to soft serve ice cream), and the recipe for that summertime frozen treat includes plenty of egg yolks. Normal ice cream doesn't, and French toast won't set up without the eggs. If you're following the famous chef's lead at home, be sure not to skimp on this step.

To prepare this dish, Pépin pops a plate of vanilla ice cream into the microwave for about 15 seconds to melt it — the ice cream, not the plate. Once the concoction becomes runny, he dunks pieces of bread into the melted ice cream, ensuring the melted vanilla goodness soaks completely into the bread. After that, each side of the toast gets cooked in the butter until it's golden brown and satisfyingly crispy.

This recipe shortcut would already be quite the morning flavor bomb on its own, but the famous chef isn't one to let a good plate of melted vanilla flavor go to waste. Instead, once the toast is cooked, the plate of melted ice cream becomes a flavorful bed for the eggy bread to rest upon. Finally, a little sliced fruit, maple syrup, and even a few scoops of frozen vanilla ice cream make this breakfast hack one for the books.