Pain Perdu

Pain Perdu with an Amaretto Crème Anglaise Sauce. 

Pain Perdu is really just French toast, but as with most French food, it's pretty fancy eating.  The French themselves consider the dish a dessert, though I've chosen to host it as dinner tonight.  (Pain Perdu translates to "lost bread", which was a dish created to reclaim stale bread.)  

The dish is prepared by taking stale bread that has been sliced on a bias and dipping it in a wash of egg, heavy cream, vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon.  The bread is lightly fried, buttered, and dusted with confectioner sugar.  The dish is then topped with fresh berries and drizzled with amaretto crème Anglaise (English cream), consisting of egg yolks, sugar, heavy cream, vanilla bean, and amaretto (optional).  The dish is finished off with a sprinkle of confectioner sugar and served with a side of vanilla bean ice cream.