What is Gulkand
Am sure many non indian readers are curious as to what Gulkand in the Gulkand French toast is. Gulkand is a rose jam created by wild rose petals and sugar packed in layers and cured with natural sunlight for many days in a glass jar so that the sugar melts and rose petals are slowly cured while also infusing the sugar with the rose fragrance. You can get it in packaged bottles in India. Middle eastern culture also do seem to have variations. If you cannot find gulkand you can just as well infuse four roses petals to substitute 1 Tbsp of Gulkand directly into milk but flavors would be much subtle.
How we make our Gulkand French Toast
Our french toast always uses brioche bread. Its buttery and sweet. Stale brioche always works better.
We have ourselves never really liked french toasts we have had at numerous brunch establishments. For us they were always far too sugary and rich and overloaded. This was until we were hooked to Chez Nanou’s French toast. It was light and custardy, not very sweet and fragrance that drove us crazy. She winked at us and told us it was a dash of orange blossom.
Hence we decided to do a lighter french toast with just eggs and gulkand infused milk. We heat the milk slowly with gulkand and when it simmers we turn off the heat and let it cool and infuse.
We then mix milk with the eggs and make the french toasts with butter. We finish with raspberries and powdered sugar. We sprinkle with pistachio and dried rose petals (available as rose tea in asian grocery stores and is an optional garnish). We finish with some really good honey and drizzle of infused milk. You can add a bit of rose essence or orange blossom water to this to make it a bit more fragrant.
Gulkand French Toast
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: Serves 2
Description
Gulkand is sunlight cured rose petals with sugar that are infused with milk and used in our gulkand french toast recipe
Ingredients
- 4 slices brioche
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tbsp Gulkand
- 0.5 tsp rose water
- 1 tsp powdered sugar for dusting
- 10 raspberries
- 1 Tbsp butter for cooking french toast
- 1 dried rose normally used for making rose tea in asia (optional)
- 4 thinly sliced pistachios
- 2 tsp good quality honey
Instructions
- Add Gulkand to milk and heat on low tobring to simmer
- Cool the milk down to room temperature and let infuse
- Beat two eggs and add to a plate,strain and add in the gulkand infused milk and reserve 2 Tbsp milk.
- Add the rose water to the reserved milk and keep aside.
- Soak the brioche slice in this mixture divinding into another plate if needed, flipping sides after couple of minutes to let the brioche absorb the liquid
- Heat a pan and melt butter on medium
- Add the french toasts and cook on both sides giving them a golden buttery toasted color
- Plate two slices in a dish each. Drizzle some of the infused milk kept aside. Top each plate with 5 raspberries. Top with powdered sugar, drizzle of honey and finish with sliced pistachio and crushed dried rose petals.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Breakfast
- Cuisine: French Indian