Ice Cream French Toast

This easy-to-follow recipe for Ice Cream French Toast makes a sweet and indulgent breakfast treat out of melted ice cream and brioche bread.

You know how in every close relationship (whether it’s love, friendship or family), there are those funny moments you’ll just never let the other person forget?

Whether it’s my best friend’s beef stroganoff carryout box spilling all over her purse, or the time my dad got stuck in a poncho, we tease the ones we love, right?

With my husband, it’s the time he put the ice cream away. In the fridge. Not the freezer. I woke up the next morning, ready to make some malted waffles and oven bacon, only to find a carton of ice cream soup in the fridge. I’ve teased him about it ever since.

If you ever find yourself in this situation (or have some ice cream that sat out at a party a tad too long and melted), what should you do?

Allow me to introduce you to this ice cream French toast recipe that is made with melted ice cream. It’s a kitchen “hack” that has probably already made the rounds on Tik Tok, but I’ve been making since long before that.

What kind of bread should I use for ice cream French toast?

First, let’s talk about the bread I’ve used here. While French toast made with ice cream can be made with lots of types of bread – baguette, Texas toast, challah, or classic sandwich bread – I strongly believe that the best French toast is made with brioche bread.

The main difference between brioche and most other types of bread is simply how many eggs and how much butter is included in a brioche recipe.

While many types of bread (like baguette) don’t include any eggs or butter at all, that isn’t true for brioche. Brioche has LOTS of eggs and LOTS of butter (maybe as much as my lemon curd cake), giving it it’s distinctive yellow color and rich flavor.

I consider it almost more of a pastry than a bread, actually. It’s great to use for any type of recipe, from sweet things such as bread pudding, to savory sandwiches like my salmon sandwiches and Sonoran hot dogs made with brioche buns.

Melted ice cream makes whipping up the custard a breeze.

There’s really only two parts of any French toast recipe – the bread and the custard. And now that we have the bread part sorted out, let’s discuss the custard.

Most traditional French toast recipes will have you prepare a custard batter (what you’re going to dip the bread into) from eggs, milk or cream, sugar and vanilla extract.

But what if you want to have a really lazy Sunday morning and want to make it even simpler?

That’s where a big scoop of melted ice cream comes in to save the day. Because the ice cream already contains milk and sugar (and usually vanilla), you get three ingredients with the ease of one.

While most (good) ice cream also contains eggs, I like to add more eggs to my batter. Some ice cream French toast recipes skip the extra eggs, and this is entirely up to you.

I think adding extra eggs just makes it nice and rich, and gives the toast a nice crispy outer layer after it is griddled.

Use melted vanilla ice cream, or a flavored ice cream.

The classic move here is to you vanilla ice cream for ice cream French toast. Classic vanilla, French vanilla, or even vanilla bean (which I always keep on hand for affogato coffee) all work great here.

But you can also use flavored ice cream like strawberry or chocolate for ice cream French toast!

The only caveat here is that you don’t want an ice cream with too many chunks in it. Save the pint studded with huge chunks of cookie dough to just eat on its own, OK?

How to make this ice cream French toast hack:

I highly suggest having a bowl of ice cream on Saturday night (or better yet, stuffed apples topped with ice cream), and then putting 1 cup of ice cream in a separate bowl and leaving it in the fridge overnight.

By the time your eyes open on Sunday morning, the ice cream will be melted and you’re basically halfway to ice cream French toast.

Dip each piece of bread into the custard for 15 seconds per side, and then griddle the bread in melted butter until it’s golden brown and delicious looking.

Mix up a batch of bloody marys with everything bagel bloody mary rim salt and epic bloody mary skewers, or a round of caramel coffee, and you’re ready for brunch!

If you’re looking for a savory addition to your spread, my vegetarian quiche recipe, savory yogurt and savory steel cut oats are some of my favorite savory brunch menu ideas.