Crackly Kinako French Toast

Author Notes

The best French toast I’ve had was more crème brulee than, well, French toast. Imagine a crackly, caramelized crust, crunching under the weight of your spoon, yielding to a custardy, batter-soaked brioche so moist, it’s what bread pudding wishes it were but never is. Shibuya toast may be the ultimate dessert for breakfast (or is it breakfast for dessert?), but this, to me, is the pinnacle of French toast.

I first had this brûléed French toast five years ago, in a dimly-lit, izakaya-style restaurant along Old Compton Street in Soho, London. Shack-Fuyu’s menu is filled with Japanese-inflected dishes like miso aubergine, iberico katsu sandos, “prawn toast masquerading as okonomiyaki” (their words), and one, sole dessert: kinako French toast.

And truth be told, bar the French toast, I had to refer to their online menu in writing this, because in the dozen or so times I’ve been there, it was only ever for dessert. I’d eat the toast at the bar counter for all but 10 minutes, before fluttering out into the frigid London air, a little fuller than when I walked in and plenty content. It was my monthly ritual in the six months I lived in London, and I still haven’t had a better French toast.

Perhaps it’s because of the unparalleled, inspired combination of kinako, roasted and pulverized soybeans—and caramelized bread. When added to sweets and desserts, kinako lends an earthy, sultry undertone—one that plays especially well with the umami-sweetness of matcha.

Replicating this dish at home, I followed the many trappings of a good French toast—using day-old brioche or pain de mie, drying the bread in the oven to allow for better batter absorption (as Serious Eats’s Daniel Gritzer suggests), and pan-frying with generous pats of butter. But, this is where I then veer off course: the finished French toast then gets sprinkled with more sugar and torched (or broiled) until bubbly, browned, and crackly all over.

Dusted with kinako and spooned with some matcha ice cream, it instantly brought me back to my time in London—that fancified French toast, a ritual revisited. —Jun