Sweet Eggy Bread (for Breakfast or Brunch)

This sweet eggy bread is whipped up in minutes. Cheap, tasty and a great way to use up stale bread. Topped with a drizzle or toffee or Greek yoghurt and berries, this dish is the perfect weekend brunch.

What is eggy bread?

Ah, eggy bread. The breakfast of my childhood. Back then, the only eggy bread I knew of was savoury. A simple dish of egg and bread, fried up and devoured (with a liberal dousing of HP sauce). Until only a few years ago, I’d never heard the term French toast, and I certainly didn’t see any correlation between that dish and my mum’s most loved breakfast.

Eggy bread is a bit like French toast’s common cousin. It’s not fancy, at all. It’s ripped up bits of bread thrown into beaten eggs. Well, our family version is, any way. Although eggy bread can be served more like typical French toast, with whole slices of bread, ours is a little bit like a savoury, pan-fried version of monkey bread. All this different terminology is becoming a little confusing, isn’t it? All you need to know, really, is that it’s good. Cheap, quick, filling and tasty. It’s a crowd pleaser, for sure. What more could you want in a breakfast or brunch?

In Sweden, French toast is called fattiga riddare, which when directly translated, means poor knight (as in penniless). I was very amused to find out that in some parts of the UK, people also refer to sweet eggy bread in a similar way, calling it poor knights of Windsor. I had no idea. The things you discover when you have a food blog.

Can you make a sweet eggy bread?

Well, yes. And here it is. Seriously though, we’ve established (albeit in a very long-winded way) that savoury eggy bread is a winner on many levels. It’s most certainly the most common way we would serve up eggy bread in the UK. A sweet version though? Coming up with the idea one day when my kids wanted cinnamon French toast, I thought to myself: why not make sweet eggy bread, instead? 

I was so pleased with the end result. Although this isn’t something I would whip up every day, it does make a lovely weekend brunch. And you don’t have to smother it in toffee sauce like I have. This is a food blog, so I need to make my food look a little pretty sometimes, and who can resist a drizzle of toffee?

How can I make this eggy bread healthier?

I love eggy bread because it is a great way to use up leftover bread. In fact, it tastes better when the bread is stale. The eggy bread is fried, so there is no escaping using oil or butter, but other than the two tablespoons of brown sugar and the toffee sauce, there is actually very little that is unhealthy. You can even omit the toffee sauce and drizzle over some honey or maple syrup if you prefer. You could even use either of those in the eggy bread, too. 

Another way to make it more balanced is to include some fruit. Berries would work so well. You could add a dollop of Greek yoghurt for good measure.

Brunch recipes

Brunch is something I usually have at the weekends. I like to make things a little special then, and here are some of my best ideas for brunch: 

• Coffee cinnamon spelt buns
• Cherry and lemon spelt soda bread
• Oat flour banana and blueberry pancakes
• Potato and tomato omelette
• Leftover pasta frittata
• Peanut butter granola
• Churro French toast

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Sweet Eggy Bread (the perfect weekend brunch)

Course Breakfast, Brunch

Cuisine British

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 3 tbs milk (any kind)
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 5-6 bread slices (any kind)
• 3 tbs oil or butter

Instructions

• Whisk the eggs and milk together. Add the sugar and cinnamon.
• Rip up the bread into small pieces (including the crusts) and add to the egg mixture. Let it sit for around 5 minutes so that all of the liquid is soaked up into the bread.
• Add around 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (or butter) to a fairly small skillet or frying pan (mine is 25cm).
• When the oil is hot (or butter has melted), pour in the eggy bread and flatten until it is an even thickness. Reduce to a medium heat.
• Cook the first side for around five minutes.
• Flip the eggy bread over (the easiest way is to place a large plate over the top of the skillet and flip), and cook the other side.
• Serve immediately with toffee sauce, melted chocolate, nuts, strawberries or Greek yoghurt. Whatever you fancy, really. Enjoy!