Life-changing French Toast

No really. It's life-changing. I thought my original amazing French toast was amazing, but this caramelizing business has taken it to the next level. 

I got the idea from Allrecipes, of course, because they don't mess around. But this is my most glorious French toast recipe that makes you feel like you're eating dessert for breakfast. But in a good way.

Batter:
4 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2-1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sugar--for the caramelized version, I used brown, but for just plain FT I just do white
Cinnamon--lots. I start with a tablespoon, probably, and periodically add it when the batter looks yellow again and not brown

Egg bread works best, and this makes about enough batter for eight pieces. I like Texas Toast, but if I was really awesome, I would make challah or brioche. We'll see if I ever decide to work that hard.

Ordinary bread works too, just be careful when you put them in the batter, because if you don't just do a quick dip on both sides, the bread gets soggy and gross and I don't know about you, but I really do not like soggy bread.

1. Whisk together batter ingredients. Done and done. 
2. I do my toast on a griddle, but if you're doing it in a skillet you'll want to melt a tablespoon of butter or margarine on medium heat. 
3. Coat either side of a slice in batter, flop it on the griddle, and give it about three minutes on each side. Cook until golden and cooked though. Mostly I like mine golden brown. Mostly brown. 
4. Transfer to a plate so they have somewhere nice to wait until you eat them. 

Now for the good stuff. This is really quite a delicious French Toast recipe as it is, but I promised caramel sauce and I intend to deliver. If you don't want to move on to the caramel part, shame on you, but serve it anyway with whatever yummy toppings you like.

How can you even say no to this baby right now?

Caramel Sauce:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 (more) tablespoons butter
1/4-1/2 cup of milk, depending how thick or liquidy you want your sauce
1-1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a skillet on medium-high heat, but closer to the medium end of the scale.
2. When the butter's sufficiently melty, add brown sugar. Stir them together, coating as much of the brown sugar as possible. 
3. Add the next 2 tablespoons butter, mixing it up with the brown sugar. It should all be very melty and brown and delicious. 
4. Add milk and vanilla, stirring them in evenly. 
5. I let my sauce cook for a little bit, until it got all bubbly. I don't know if this actually did anything, but it made me feel nice. And it smelled good. 
6. One cooked slice at a time, dip one side into the caramel sauce and transfer to another plate. I coated my bread pretty heavily with the caramel, and used tongs to flop the bread around. It's pretty sticky and heavy, so you might have to wrestle it a little bit, but trust me, it's worth it. 

Now! Serve hot and delicious. This toast needed no toppings, in my opinion, but I guess you could sprinkle powdered sugar and more cinnamon on them, or whipped cream, or whatever people do on delicious caramelized toast.

There's pretty much nothing that can't benefit from more cinnamon, in my humble opinion, but as I said, this French toast really needs no other toppings.

Enjoy!