French Toast Toast Recipe – how to make the perfect homemade toast bread

Add the flour, yeast, sugar and milk to the Mixing bowl of your kitchen machine. Mix all ingredients for 3 minutes on speed 1 until an even, still coarse dough mass forms. This first step isn't about developing the dough yet, but simply about combining all the base ingredients and dissolving the yeast optimally in the milk.

Now add the soft butter and knead for a further 3 minutes on speed 1. The butter gives your toast bread its typically tender, buttery texture and must be worked completely into the dough. Then add the salt and continue kneading for 10 minutes on speed 2 until a smooth, supple and elastic dough forms. The salt is deliberately added only at the end, as it slows the yeast's activity and affects the gluten structure.

To check whether your dough has been kneaded enough, do the so-called windowpane test: take a small piece of dough (about the size of a walnut) and gently stretch it between your fingers in all directions. If the dough can be pulled paper-thin without tearing, and you can see the light shining through the dough membrane, the gluten structure is perfectly developed. If the dough tears too quickly, knead for another 2–3 minutes and repeat the test.

Once the dough is ready, shape it into a ball. Put a little oil into a Bowl, spread it lightly all around and place the dough inside. This keeps the dough supple and lets it come out of the Bowl effortlessly after resting. Cover the Bowl and let the dough rest for 30 minutes at room temperature – during this bulk fermentation the dough develops its aroma and starts to visibly rise.

After the bulk fermentation, place the dough on a lightly floured work surface and shape it into an elongated rectangle. To do this, press the edges from the outside towards the middle and then roll the dough up evenly. The dough piece should be about the same length as your Baking tin, so that it later sits neatly in the tin and no folds form.

Prepare your toast baking tin: spray it generously all around with the Refrigerant spray for food – the spray reliably prevents the dough from sticking to the tin during baking and ensures clean release. Then place the shaped dough piece into the tin and press it firmly into all the corners with your hands and fingers. This step is crucial: only if the dough is evenly distributed and pressed well into the tin can it fill the tin perfectly as it rises, giving your toast bread its typically even, square structure.

Cover the Baking tin with a plastic pastry cloth – not with the tin's lid! The plastic pastry cloth protects the dough from drying out without hindering its expansion. Now let the dough rise for 40–60 minutes in a warm, draught-free spot. During this time it should visibly rise and come up to about 1 cm below the rim of the tin. Towards the end of the final proof, preheat your oven to 200 °C fan.

As soon as the dough has reached the right height, remove the plastic pastry cloth and close the Baking tin with its lid. Then slide the tin into the preheated oven.

Bake your toast bread at 200 °C fan for 40 minutes. After 30 minutes, open the tin's lid and let the bread finish baking uncovered for the last 10 minutes. This gives the surface its typically fine, golden-brown colour and the characteristic crust.

Take the toast bread out of the tin right after baking. Never let it cool in the tin, otherwise condensation forms and the bread bulges at the edges or turns rubbery. Place it on a Cake rack and let it cool completely there before slicing. Only a fully cooled toast bread can be cut cleanly into even slices – and freshly toasted, it tastes simply incomparable.