More ways to eat kaya
As one faithful reader pointed out in a comment on my last post, one of the very best ways to devour homemade kaya is spread over French toast. Taking inspiration from her very wise words, I whipped up a batch for breakfast and smeared it with the remaining kaya.
I really love French toast (or pain perdu, as the French call it). It’s one of the easiest dishes to learn to make. It’s also one of the most delicious. It’s great for breakfast paired with some crispy bacon and maple syrup. It’s also fantastic as a dessert, plated with some fresh fruit and ice cream.
When making French toast, I like to use a soft white bread. The local 7-11 here sells a bread they call “Kopitiam Bread”. It’s the same bread I used previously with my kaya toast. Because it’s so soft, it really soaks up the egg dip that you dunk the bread into before frying.
To make a batch, mix all of the ingredients cited in the picture above in a large bowl. This quantity is enough for 3 or 4 pieces of bread (perfect for breakfast for deux). I like cutting my bread in half in order to get slightly smaller pieces of French toast — which are also easier to handle when cooking. Melt a large pat of butter over medium heat in a large frying pan. When the butter begins to brown, dunk the bread pieces in the egg mixture, then place them, one at a time, on the fry pan. When the sides on the pan turns golden-brown, fip the bread pieces and brown the other sides. Serve with kaya, powdered sugar, or whatever else you might have on hand.
Technorati tags: kaya, french toast, breakfast
About Aun Koh
Aun has always loved food and travel, passions passed down to him from his parents. This foundation, plus a background in media, pushed him to start Chubby Hubby in 2005. He loves that this site allows him to write about the things he adores--food, style, travel, his wife and his three kids!
This is so neat! I’d never heard of Kaya before I came across your post, and now I can barely wait to get my hands on some, will probably have to wait for a lil’ while 🙁 , as I don’t know where I can get pandanus leaves from! In the meantime I’ll drool over the french toast with kaya !
Thanks for sharing !
Gosh – everytime I read your post… I get homesick for Singapore. Food from Singapore is so unique to our country; it’s hard to replicate anywhere. I tried your chicken rice the other time and I forgot about Paris and being far from home for that 15 mins I gobbled my food down.
i just had that from one of killiney kopitiam branches (which is just directly below my office) this afternoon. divine…..
Hmm Mr CH, i can’t see the photo. The suspense is killing me! :p
yours,
faithful reader
if u don’t mind me asking, how do we pair the sweetness of the maple syrup to the saltiness of the bacon? sometimes, i thought i find it a mismatch……..
Honey works as a substitute for maple syrup too. 🙂
Merci!!!..Delicious! Try golden syrup..yummy
Kaya is so great – all my Brit friends love it. It makes for a good gift.
Hey you live in Asia!…why use vanilla essence?? Use vanilla pod no??
Hey… have been quietly reading your blog for some time now and I must say your posts are extremely inspiring. My gosh… you must really spend a lot of time honing your craft for the photographs are awesome and the food look so good, I could eat them off my computer screen!!!
…french toast… love it to bits… enough said 🙂 Have you tried adding raisins to them? Then again, it’s an acquired taste-too sweet for some 🙂
Thank you for being such an inspiration. Hopefully in time to come, I can learn how to take good photographs too!
While your version sounds super tempting, I still prefer the savory version my father makes. Our family eats it with maggi’s tomato ketchup! =p I think my friend eats it with kaya though… so this is the second time I’ve seen this version…
This kaya stuff is totally new to me. Since I adore all ways of eating toast with butter and soft or poached eggs, I really enjoyed reading this.
Excellent french toast recipe! I am dying to know what kopitiam bread is like. Could you compare it to anything else for those of us not in Singapore?
i love kaya + french toast! what my mom does is spread the kaya on the bread (she uses traditional chinese bakery soft bread) and then fold it as you would a sandwich and then dip in the egg mixture and fry. Somewhat like a stuffed french toast. Yum!
Love this like crazy in the morning though while trying to push off the thoughts of sugar and fats while munching the french toast laden with kaya.
Totally agree that french toast with kaya (and also maple syrup) makes one of the best breakfasts around. I’m pretty familiar with your rendition (and love the simplicity of it), but have too been wondering if there might be other worthy variations around – such as the brioche bread with eggs+heavy cream soak (i see this often enough in Aussie mags), or perhaps those southern recipes that call for OVERNIGHT soaking of the bread? Could there be more decadent versions that could make the difference between great and fantastic french toasts? Care to try it out and share your experience? Cheers!
kopitiam bread is just like white bread without the edges, no? but they’re like long-ish instead of square loaves… we call it “hainan bread” between my group of friends… probably because the kaya toast with butter, etc. kinda thing were found in hainanese coffee shops…
i simply love kaya… hehe… i like it with those dessert glutinous rice dumplings or nonya kueh or even those malay pulut kuehs! YUM! now i can make my own kaya! yay!
i like my french toast with some cheese! everytime i cant think of anything to make for my lunchbox to school i’ll just make 2 pieces of french toast… put a slice of cheddar between and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon! ooh… so sinful…
Does anybody know where you can buy Kaya online, ideally in the US?
I lived and worked in Sing for four years in the early ninties. I soon started enjoying kaya toast but I did not like the sweet, milky kapeng that goes with it. So I used it in my appartment. I now live in Manila where there are some branches of BreadTalk which have now started selling jars of Nonya Kaya. I often have it on toast at weekends after my eggs and bacon, but with black, unsweetened coffee. Love it.