Boozy Dawn French Toast
A dozen eggs, stale bread, and a slug of Irish cream. Feeds whoever wandered over.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 72
- protein
- 14 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 30 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Grill grate
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Eggs | 1 dozen | |
|---|---|---|
| Milk | 1 cup | evaporated milk works and does not need ice |
| Irish cream liqueur | 1/2 to 3/4 cup | |
| Sugar | 2 tbsp | |
| Butter | for the griddle | a stick is about right for a full loaf |
| Sliced bread | 1 loaf | day-old or older; fresh bread falls apart |
Method
- Crack the eggs into a wide bowl or pot. Add the milk, liqueur, and sugar and beat until the top goes foamy.
- Taste the batter. Thin it with more milk or push it sweeter with more liqueur before the bread goes in.
- Set a griddle or heavy skillet over the fire on a grate and let it come up to heat. Butter it.
- Dip a slice, let it sit in the batter a couple of seconds a side, and lay it down. Do not soak it longer than that or it will not hold together on the flip.
- Cook until the underside is brown, flip once, and pull it when the second side matches. Re-butter between rounds.
- Keep going until the batter is gone. Serve with syrup or more butter.
This is a car-camping breakfast, not a trail one: eggs, dairy, and a bottle of liqueur are all cooler weight. The batch size is the point. A dozen eggs and a loaf covers about ten people, which is roughly what a group site produces at seven in the morning.
Stale bread is not a shortcut, it is the requirement. Dry slices absorb custard and stay intact on the flip; fresh bread turns to paste in the batter and shreds on the spatula. The alcohol mostly cooks off on the griddle, so what you get is the sweet cream-and-vanilla side of the liqueur, not the burn. Evaporated milk in place of fresh is worth doing — it is shelf-stable until the can opens and it makes a richer custard.
Packing
Eggs ride in a hard egg carrier, batter ingredients in the cooler. Pre-measure the sugar into a small jar. Buy the bread a couple of days early and leave the bag open so it dries out.
Variations
- Skip the liqueur and use evaporated milk plus a splash of vanilla and a shake of cinnamon. The batter still works and nobody is driving impaired.
- Cook it in a Dutch oven lid over coals if you have no griddle.
- Leftover slices, cooked and cooled, are decent cold out of the cooler at lunch.
https://camprecipes.com/classic-recipes/criminal-dawn-french-toast