Cholla from the Paradise Bakery in London.
I have been following a thread on French toast at eGullet. They suggested using challah which is the same as cholla, it appears to have several names depending on the country. I thought yah, where am I going to find that in the UK. Yesterday I was at Costco and looked down to see a pallet of the stuff, French toast here I come!!!! BTW this is eggy bread to the people in the UK.
You need to top and tail the cholla and try to get rid of many poppy/sesame seeds as possible.
Crack and egg into a bowl and then add a couple of glugs of milk, then beat with a whisk until it resembles scrambled egg batter. Pour the egg mixture into a pie plate and set next to the stove. Then get some butter just sizzling in a pan – not to hot, just so you can barely hear it. Then quickly place the cholla in the egg mixture and then turn over and coat the other side and place into frying pan. This is kind of an art as you need to cover the whole surface, but not so long as to soak up too much egg. Cholla is a dense bread and also a little sweet which is why it makes ideal French toast.
Now is the time to get your butter and syrup out.
I love this marketing gag, “Organic” Maple Syrup, its tree sap, doh of course it is organic!
When the toast is lightly browned on both sides plate it up with lots of butter and syrup.
This made my daughter go yuuuummmm this morning, and she exclaimed that she had a new favourite bread too.