Restaurant vs Homemade: Artsy Vegan French Toast

Welcome back, human beans!

I have been fantasizing about this very “grammable” French toast I had at the restaurant, Dimes in New York City every now and then since I tried it with friends in 2017. I remember it being the only real dish we liked at that place, but we liked it enough that I wanted to return at some point. Finally, I felt compelled to actually come back and have a socially-distant brunch with someone just so I can have it again. However, as I skimmed through the menu online, I was pained to discover that this artwork of a dish is no longer served there at all! I even called to confirm that Dimes officially no longer makes it. This is a photo of what I had three years ago:

Overcome with a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) as I had to accept that I will never have this exact french toast grace my taste buds (and Instagram, let’s be real) again, an idea suddenly came to me. I’ve always wanted to try recreating a restaurant dish at home. It doesn’t have to be the end between me and artsy french toast! So I called up the one and only Michelle Lema of @artworldnyc, a leading Instagram personality and guide for immersive art and pop-up events in New York City, to join me in my backyard, to film a morning of cooking and catching up! The recreation turned out INCREDIBLE and ended up being the best french toast Michelle and I have ever had in our lives. I AM NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING. It may not look exactly as the Dimes french toast but I mean, just look at it:

Overall Re-creation Rating by Michelle and I:

To recreate this french toast, I skimmed through a couple options on google. Since it’s Meatless Monday, we decided to commit to a fully vegan French toast, which meant absolutely no eggs, dairy, or any other animal products. I’ll confess that I was worried of the taste lacking in that buttery goodness that I so love in traditional french toast, but to both mine and Michelle’s surprise, it still ended up being super fluffy and tasty. You really couldn’t tell butter wasn’t involved! Since the dish had two components (french toast and a raspberry-looking jam), I took it upon myself to look up a vegan French toast recipe, as well as one for homemade raspberry jam. You read that right, we made our own jam! Some of you might know this is so easy to do, but as someone who just really started cooking seriously in quarantine, this felt like a massive accomplishment!

These are our ratings of the recipes I took reference from:

Food Network - Vegan French Toast

I would give this recipe 5 forks if only it didn’t skimp on the coconut oil, but it still gets 4 forks for just hitting the mark on every front—taste, look, mouthfeel, easy to follow. I‘ve never used coconut oil so thank God for this recipe! I’m definitely going to use coconut oil on everything now. It really added an extra buttery-like flavor to the brunch.

Vogue - Raspberry Jam

Where do I even begin? Vogue’s cooking section on YouTube deserved better. While the narrator listed out what the ingredients are, the “recipe” gave absolutely no measurements on how much of anything to use! Excuse me, but a recipe should and is supposed to have an ingredient list with measurements, and a thorough list for procedure! This one really irked me as I didn’t know when to stop mixing and how much exactly to use of anything, so I ended up eye-balling quite literally every single step! Fortunately, mine ended up being a delicious and legitimate raspberry jam! As Michelle said, “the best recipe is no recipe.” I still don’t agree with this though so don’t worry, I’ll give you my official recipe below.

I know it looks like I used a lot of sugar for the raspberry jam but surprise surprise! That‘s the base for a good jam and I promise you it‘s well worth the sugar rush. I did eyeball it so I would say I used about a small bowl’s worth of heaping sugar.

Final verdict:

If we put these two french toasts in competition with one another, who would win? Is it the aesthetically-constructed plate from Dimes or my rustic, messy, but mouthwatering homemade vegan version? I think it’s pretty obvious given all the praise I‘ve agiven the latter, and the fact that Dimes doesn’t even sell french toast anymore. Maybe a major deciding factor as well was just the joy of cooking together with my best friend, Michelle. There’s something about recreating a restaurant dish with good company, although we had our fair share of misadventures (in our cooking show dropping this Thursday), that made the experience of eating our final dish extra special and all the more satisfying. I highly encourage you to try this out either with a friend, family member, or significant other! Even if it means doing it over zoom, it’s surely going to be a fun time for both your bellies and state of minds!

Stay healthy, safe, and see you this Thursday for my official cooking show pilot!

À bientôt!

xoxo,

franchette