Gordon Ramsay’s eggy bread uses stale white bread dipped in a cinnamon and sugar egg mix, fried in butter until crisp and golden, then served with quick stewed apples. The recipe is from his Ultimate Home Cooking cookbook and serves 4.
Ramsay has a personal connection to this one. In the UCC video he says “I was about six years of age, remember this huge tray of eggy bread to the table and it was like wow, we’ve died and gone to heaven.”
He calls it “my mum’s incredibly delicious cinnamon eggy bread” and says “you won’t get more breakfast for your buck.” In France they call it pain perdu, which translates to “the lost loaf.” The whole point is rescuing bread that’s past its best.
The bread has to be stale. Ramsay is firm on this: “a four or five day old loaf, if it’s fresh bread it absorbs too much of the egg, gets soggy, you never get it fried and crisp.”
The other trick is adding the cinnamon and sugar directly into the egg mixture instead of sprinkling them on at the end. That way the sugar caramelises as it hits the hot pan, so you get a crispy, almost toffee-like crust on the outside while the inside stays soft and custardy.
Gordon Ramsay Eggy Bread
Course: BreakfastCuisine: British, FrenchDifficulty: Easy4
10
minutes10
minutes320
kcal20
minutesFrom Gordon Ramsays Ultimate Home Cooking. Stale bread dipped in cinnamon sugar egg mix and fried in butter until crisp. Ramsay grew up eating this at six years old and calls it the best breakfast for your buck. The trick is stale bread and adding cinnamon to the egg, not on top after.
Ingredients
- For the eggy bread
3 free-range eggs, beaten
4 tbsp whole milk
1 tsp ground cinnamon, plus extra for dusting
2 tbsp caster sugar
4 thick slices of slightly stale white bread, halved into triangles
Butter, for frying
Icing sugar, for dusting
- For the stewed apple
400g eating apples (Braeburn), cored and chopped into chunks
2 tbsp caster sugar
25g butter
Directions
- Stew the apples first: Melt the caster sugar in a small pan, swirl it around but don’t stir. Once melted, add the apples and butter, cook for 2 minutes, then add a couple of tablespoons of water. Simmer for 5-8 minutes over a low heat until the apple begins to collapse and the remaining chunks are tender. Set aside.
- Make the egg mix: Put the eggs, milk, cinnamon, and sugar into a bowl and whisk together. Dip the bread triangles into the mixture until saturated on both sides, but don’t leave them soaking or they’ll fall apart.
- Fry: Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add a knob of butter and cook the eggy bread on each side until crisp and golden, about 90 seconds per side.
- Serve: Plate the eggy bread with the warm stewed apple spooned alongside. Dust with icing sugar.
FAQs
Why does Ramsay leave the skins on the apples?
Most stewed apple recipes tell you to peel first. Ramsay does the opposite because “there’s a lot of flavour in the skin and it stops the apple from breaking down too quickly.”
Without skins the apple collapses into puree in minutes. With them you get tender chunks sitting in a butterscotch sauce.
He starts by melting sugar dry in the pan before adding the apples, so you’re caramelising first and stewing second. That toffee flavour underneath lifts it from basic stewed fruit to something worth eating on its own.
Can you use brioche or croissants instead of white bread?
Ramsay gives two versions. The UHC recipe uses stale white bread for an everyday breakfast. But on The F Word he makes a posher version called pain perdu using day-old brioche, dipped in eggs, vanilla, cream, and milk.
That version comes with caramelised peaches and raspberry coulis instead of stewed apples. In UHC he writes “this is even more decadent when made with day-old brioche, croissants, or panettone.”
The richer the bread, the richer the result. Save the brioche version for weekends.
What fruit works if you don’t have apples?
Ramsay says in the video “if you haven’t got apples this recipe will work pretty much with any fruit. Don’t be scared to mix a pear and an apple, a banana and a pineapple.”
The caramel method stays the same: dry sugar in a hot pan, add the fruit, then butter and a splash of water.
Stone fruit like peaches and nectarines hold their shape well. Berries are trickier as they collapse quickly, but a handful of blueberries scattered through stewed apple adds colour without going mushy.
Why is stale bread better than fresh?
Fresh bread is too soft and absorbent. It soaks up the egg like a sponge and turns into a soggy lump that falls apart in the pan. You can’t get colour on it because the surface is too wet.
Stale bread has dried out enough that the egg coats the outside without soaking through. The surface crisps in the butter while the centre stays just soft enough.
Ramsay says four or five days old is ideal. A thick slice of his homemade white bread left out overnight works perfectly. If your bread is fresh, slice it and leave it out uncovered to dry.
