Sweet Mel's Recipe Rebuttal

When deciding what kind of recipe rebuttal to do, I had to look at what I felt was the most offensively bad dish they had at Sweet Mel's in terms of what they offered vs. what was delivered. Without question, it was their burger served between pieces of french toast with hashbrowns, cheese, egg, bacon, and a normal burger in the center. I decided that nearly every component of what should have been an interesting burger failed to meet expectations. That's pretty bad when you're supposedly a burger place. Crappy french toast, overcooked egg, tasteless cheese, frozen tasting hashbrowns, an overcooked burger patty, and a really bad couple pieces of bacon. Bad bacon? Is such a thing possible? Apparently so.

The mainstay to French Toast in my mind has to be good quality bread. Luckily, the good people at Uppercrust Bakery set me up with a delicious French White bread. Normally, yes, I prefer a Sourdough, but French Toast made with a French Bread: sure. I think that'll do. So French Toast recipes as designed by the English were called "pain perdu,"which is French for wasted bread. Basically, this is bread that has gone stale, but can still be salvaged with the combination of a delightful custard. To be honest, I eyeballed the custard. I used two eggs and about a cup or so of milk with a dash of vanilla and just a bit of brown sugar. Custard is delicious probably regardless of the ratio, but I didn't skimp on the eggs considering I got some fresh eggs from the chickens my parents keep at their place in Tampa. Step 1 was to cut 4 pieces of white bread to let stale up overnight. I also let the custard set overnight as well.

The next step was to consider meat. I considered doing a beef patty along with bacon like they did at Sweet Mel's but, honestly, I felt like the Beef wouldn't particular match well with the French Toast. While I did like the idea of going with some good bacon, I figured I did want the meaty bite of a patty. So the question arose. What kind of meat patty would I go with? Luckily, Fresh Market has some handy dandy breakfast country style sausage meat.

Delightful. Going with the patty of pork meant a difficult decision. Should I also add bacon to this? I figured with all the other stuff going in, it might be gilding the lily. Considering the whole thing seems like a big case of gilding the lily, adding bacon could have just been a bridge too far. In retrospect, I'm not sure if I would have repeated that decision. I just don't know how much the bacon would have added considering the final product was so over the top.

So step 1 was to cook the pork patties. I wanted decent color, but I definitely do not like overcooked pork which tends to be something everyone seems to enjoy doing. So I cranked my big cast iron to medium and cooked fairly thinly pressed pork patties to a golden color. I seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper as well.

Halfway done.

I flipped them about 3 times to make sure the color was even.

Next step was the hashbrowns. I had some Idaho Gold on hand, so I figured that'd be good enough. Great hashbrowns have to be dried pretty substantially to get you the best possible hashbrowns. I did a decent amount of drying, but I could have gone farther. Ideally, you want to probably put the shredded potatoes into the fridge to dry using a similar method to drying out steak. I cooked these through somewhere between medium and medium high.

Forgive the Blurryish Soap Operaishness

As you can see, the color on the top one was pretty much exactly how it was supposed to be done. The one of the left had to be flipped another time to really crisp it up further. I used a bit of salt and pepper here as well.


Meanwhile, the French Toast had to soak up that batter. I gave each piece of toast about five minutes on each side to really soak up that custard.

So after soaking all four pieces of French toast, I put it in my cast iron with some butter at a bit past medium heat. I was worried that I was crowding the pan a bit, but it turned out to not be that bad.

I had to give the bottom left one another flip.

As you can see, a decent browning was had. They were pretty incredible though, as it was almost a custardy bread pudding. Pretty incredible.

Construction Begins

I laid a slab of some awesome local honey on the French Toast to add that delightful honey flavor to my French Toast that had relatively little sweetness in the custard. As you can see, I have the filling arranged up top.

Extra Sharp Cheddar

I went with extra sharp cheddar to cut through the creaminess already in the French Toast.

On top of all this, I did two eggs over easy making sure the egg yolk stayed runny. That went on top of the rest of the filling.

That egg yolk is ready to burst.

And then I assembled. And drizzled some maple syrup on top.

Because I wanted to, I added just a touch of Nutella to the top of the French Toast. Why? Because I had some.

Yeah, that egg yolk just burst all over it.


Was it good? Regretfully, it was way better than anything that terrible for you has any right to be. Honestly, it was super delicious. Did it all work together? Honestly, there's probably a good reason that breakfast places separate the components. As good as a French Toast sandwich can be? It's probably pretty close.

One things for sure. After having such a ridiculous meal, I have one thing to eat for the next three days.

It's a green smoothie made with fruit, kale, and lettuce. Maybe after spending the next 3 days only eating this, I'll feel like I can eat a normal meal again without any guilt.

--Charles