Instant Pot French Toast

I’m teaching a pressure cooking class in a few weeks and we are doing a brunch theme on a Saturday morning. Life doesn’t get much better, does it? I am now facing the challenge of fine tuning my recipes and having them ready to share with the class. So here we are, talking about French toast in the pressure cooker.

This French toast is a cross with bread pudding, since in order to make it work in the pressure cooker, you will cube your bread instead of leaving it in slices. The quantity of this recipe leaves me wanting, it serves four nicely. If you have a larger group to serve, you may need to plan to make two or use a larger pressure cooker that can fit a larger cake pan – your cooking time should not change. I will note that it cooked pretty quickly, very little warm up time, and the 5-minute quick release is helpful, also. So, if you cook two in a row, I can see it working out okay for serving them together.

But on to the recipe. In order to make a great French toast, you need to know a couple of things:

• Use brioche or a lighter, sweet bread. I found a nice loaf of fluffy, slightly crusty French bread at Costco and it worked well. This is not the time to break out the multigrain, sourdough breads. They will just end up being so heavy and dense that you won’t be happy with the end results.
• Since I bought my bread at Costco, I had a lot of it. I sliced it all up and then froze it cubed. It is ready to go when I want to make the next batch of French toast. Alternatively, it can be made into croutons sometime down the line.
• There is no long soak needed of the bread in the egg and milk mixture, like you would with traditional French toast or bread pudding. The pressure cooker magically does the work of getting the liquid into the bread.
• My little cheesecake pan that fits the Instant Pot manages to leak. I put tin foil around the outside, but it only helped to collect the liquid that escaped the pan. Next time, I plan to line the inside of the pan with a bit of parchment paper to keep that eggy goodness where it belongs.
• Speaking of cheesecake pans, if you don’t have one for your pressure cooker, don’t stress. Find a Pyrex or other oven safe pan that fits and go for it. Some people find they need a few extra minutes when they use a Pyrex, but I have never found that to be the case.
• When I pulled my French toast out of the InstantPot, the top looked like it needed a little crisping, so I poured a little melted butter over the top and toasted it under the broiler in the oven. This is an optional extra step. Totally optional, but worth it, if you have the time. You can add a little cinnamon and sugar to the top also, but be sure to watch it carefully under the broiler.
• You can also add fruit to the French toast while it cooks. I’m planning to try adding frozen blueberries in my next batch. Of course, fruit as a final topping is an excellent option, also.

With no further ado, here is the recipe. I hope you enjoy!