Cross has also been credited with incorporating Texas toast as bread for the Pig Stand’s famed chicken-fried steak sandwich. Cross, suggested buttering both sides of the bread and toasting it on oven racks. This inadvertently created a problem for the cooks: The thick-cut bread wouldn’t fit in the restaurant’s toasters. Royce Hailey of the Pig Stand drive-in restaurant in Beaumont, Texas, reportedly felt the restaurant’s bread slices were too thin, so in 1941, he asked bread supplier Rainbow Bakery to slice the bread thicker. While many regionally beloved foods have hotly disputed origin stories (like, say, Buffalo wings), few people seem to question the creation story of Texas toast. It’s sliced about twice as thick as normal bread, typically seen in somewhere between 3/4-inch to 1-inch slices. The toast frequently comes as a side, rather than solo, alongside homey dishes like chicken-fried steak, barbecue, and breakfast plates. Generally speaking, it’s thick-cut toast, typically buttered on both sides and cooked on a griddle or flat-top until golden. Here now, a primer on the creation of Texas toast, its spread across the country, and its glorious utility as an extra utensil for eating barbecue. Texas toast has humble origins, hailing from the state whose name it bears, and its simplicity is the key to its longevity the thick-cut toast has remained largely unchanged since its invention. One particularly famous regional variety of toast dates back to the mid-20th century, and unlike today’s toast-as-a-main-course trend, it’s best used as a side for sopping up the remains of a hearty Southern breakfast. But it need not always come bearing a $12 price tag and/or a thick swipe of house-made ricotta: Toast, in its most humble form, has existed for centuries, and will undoubtedly outlive millennials and their hashtags. Let cool in the pans for a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack to completely cool.Thanks to Instagram, artisanal jam, and, of course, avocados, few foods have invited as much eye-rolling and internet scorn in recent years as toast. Bake in a 375☏ oven for 35-40 minutes, covering with foil for the last 15 minutes to prevent over-browning.Cover one more time and let rise for 35 minutes until nearly double. Shape into 2 loaves and place in 2 sprayed loaf pans. After it has doubled, punch it down and divide the dough in half.Make sure you keep it away from drafts, I usually stick this in a turned off oven. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, which should take about an hour and 15 minutes. Turn the ball over once to butter all sides of it. Shape this into a ball and place in a lightly buttered large bowl. Onto a lightly floured surface, knead the dough, adding in the last cup of flour (or so) until the dough is semi-stiff, smooth and elastic.Beat this mixture on high speed for 3 minutes, then stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can with a spoon (probably around 3 cups). Mix this in to the flour mixture, then beat in your eggs one at a time on low speed for about 30 seconds each, scraping down the sides of the bowl when necessary. Leave that while, in a saucepan, you heat up the milk, sugar, butter and salt until warm and butter is almost all melted, stirring constantly. In a large mixer, combine 3 cups of flour with the yeast.I imagine it would be amazeballs when made into french toast, so maybe I'll have to get some maple syrup that hasn't expired and try that out with the remaining loaf! You won't regret it!)Īnyway! I made the bread, and we ate almost a whole loaf in one day, including making some grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. And, sadly, they don't make it at the same restaurant here in LA! What! Quelle horreur! So, if you ever go to the Hillstone in Phoenix, try out the Gulf Coast Fish Sandwich. (P.S., my favorite sandwich appears to be this fish sandwich I had at another place in Phoenix. Incidentally, if you ever want to try this sandwich and you happen to be in Phoenix, it's the BLT Revival at Tonto Bar & Grill. Now, this was not my all-time favorite sandwich because it had too much aioli sauce on it, but I did like the bread. And it was made using this Texas Toast-style bread. It seems kind of random, perhaps? Well, recently I went to Phoenix and had a sandwich, a sandwich my boyfriend would come to call the best sandwich he's ever tasted.
That may leave you to wonder why I would make this bread.