In my family, weekends are a perfect opportunity for everyone to share a wholesome breakfast and good conversation. A big part of our tradition involves having foods we’re too busy to normally cook on weekdays.
I’m talking here about waffles, pancakes, french toast, and the like. However, we used to face one small challenge: not everyone wakes up at the same time!
So, we had to figure out a way for all of us to have yummy warm food once everyone was up. In this article, I’ll tell you how to keep french toast warm.
Warning: we’ll say french toast a lot in this article. So, we might trigger your carb cravings or give you the munchies. Proceed with care.
First Method: Keep Them in the Oven
Using the oven is the ultimate, foolproof way to keep your french toast warm until your guests arrive. They’ll also be as crisp as they’re straight out of the pan.
Step 1: Preheat the Oven
Before making the batter and preparing the toast, preheat the oven to the lowest temperature that yours can go. This is usually around 150-200°F.
The french toast won’t burn at this temperature even if it stays there for hours.
Step 2: Line a Baking Sheet With Parchment Paper
To prevent the cooked french toast from sticking, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Alternatively, you can brush the tray with a bit of cooking oil.
Step 3: Make the French Toast
Now, you can go ahead and make your toast. Here’s a basic french toast recipe for you to try.
Step 4: Lay the French Toast on the Baking Sheet
Once the french toast is cooked, transfer it immediately to the baking sheet. Place the pieces flat in a single layer next to each other on the baking tray.
If you stack them on top of one another, they’ll lose their crunch and become flat and soggy. That’s not ideal.
Step 5: Place the Baking Sheet in the Oven
Place the baking sheet with the toasts into the oven. That’s where they’ll stay nice and warm until it’s time to serve them.
Step 6: Continue Making More French Toast
If you’re making a large quantity, and I suppose that you are, you’ll still have a lot of soaked pieces of toast ready to fry while the first few are waiting in the oven.
Fry the toast in the stovetop skillet. Then, as soon as a couple of them are cooked, transfer them to the baking sheet in the oven with their friends.
Second Method: Use a Ceramic Dish
If you don’t like having too many things to clean up after a meal, you can use a ceramic dish to keep your french toast warm as well are serving it on your breakfast table. This works best for a small amount of french toast.
Ceramic dishes, the kind you can use to cook food in the oven, tend to retain heat very well. Here’s how to use a ceramic dish to keep your yummies warm.
Step 1: Preheat the Oven
First, preheat your oven to a temperature of 200°F.
Step 2: Put the Ceramic Dish in the Oven
Heat the dish thoroughly by placing it in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. By this time, your ceramic dish will be hot all the way through.
Step 3: Make the French Toast
While the ceramic dish is heating in the oven, prepare the batter and dip the bread slices in them. Also, bring out your skillet, butter, and spatula in preparation for frying the french toast.
Step 4: Place the Dish on The Counter
For ease of access, you can place the ceramic dish on the countertop next to the stove while you’re cooking the french toast. Don’t forget to hold the hot dish with oven mitts to protect your hands.
Step 5: Put the Cooked French Toast in the Ceramic Dish
Fry both sides of the french toast with a bit of butter until it’s crisp and golden. Next, lay the cooked pieces of toast vertically on the side of the ceramic dish such that they’re leaning on one another like books on a shelf.
Step 6: Cover the Ceramic Dish
Some ceramic dishes come with lids. If yours has one, cover the french toast with the lid to keep it warm until it’s time to eat.
Alternatively, if your dish doesn’t have a lid, you can use a sheet of aluminum foil to cover the french toast. The reflective surface does a good job of keeping the heat in.
I suggest you leave a small opening for moisture to escape the dish since the excess water may cause the french toast to become limp.
Can You Eat French Toast Cold?
This question can be tackled from two perspectives. The first side of the coin: does french toast taste good cold? The second question would be: is it safe to eat cold french toast?
Regarding the taste of cold french toast, well, it’s not the best. Yet, it’s understandable that food tends to become cold pretty quickly in the winter.
So, if you don’t mind cold french toast, then you can go ahead and eat it that way.
As for the safety of eating cold french toast, there are some rules. According to the USDA, cooked food that’s lying at room temperature for over two hours is unsafe for consumption.
However, if you can maintain the temperature of the food over 140°F, then it will still be ok to eat even after two hours. The ideal temperature for the growth of bacteria, which we should avoid, is 40-140°F.
What if you made too much french toast and ended up with leftovers? Well, you should freeze or refrigerate them as quickly as possible.
How to Reheat Cold French Toast
To reheat frozen or refrigerated french toast, you can pop them in the microwave for about a minute. Check if they’re warm all the way to the center, and give it another 30 seconds if you have to.
The problem with microwaving french toast is that they’ll become soggy. To revive cold french toast to its crispy crust glory, place them in a preheated oven at 400°F for three to four minutes.
A toaster will do the job just as well but in a shorter time. If you want, you can put some butter into a pan and reheat your french toast on the stovetop.
Final Thoughts
In this article, we talked about how to keep french toast warm. Although there might be many appliances out there that you can use to keep your food warm, you may not have some of them in your kitchen.
To keep your french toasts warm, you can lay them on a baking sheet in a preheated oven until mealtime. Alternatively, you can use a ceramic dish to keep them hot.
A ceramic dish tends to hold heat very well. However, for best results, you should heat the dish in the oven first.
That being said, keeping french toast warm is the best practice if you’re going to eat them on the same day. That’s because cold french toast that’s been left out for too long will go bad.
I have a bachelor’s degree in Film/Video/Media Studies, as well as an associates degree in Communications. I began producing videos and musical recordings nearly 15 years ago. I am a guitarist and bassist in Southwest MI and have been in a few different bands since 2009, and in 2012 I began building custom guitars and basses in my home workshop as well. When I’m home, I love spending time with my three pets (a dog, cat, and snake) and gardening in my backyard.