Newfoundland Touton Breakfast

Every Newfoundlander knows well the taste of a properly prepared touton. The simplicity of these, combined with patience, is what makes them so good! The only question that remains is what do you top them with? Serve toutons with eggs and bacon for a complete breakfast!

Last month, I shared a series of breakfast recipes with you, Dear Reader. It was a part of my annual Christmas recipe countdowns and I called it Lord Byron’s 12 Christmas Breakfasts. I wanted to include this Newfoundland Touton Breakfast in that countdown, but it’s too special to not showcase on its very own.

To be completely honest, I don’t even know if toutons are purely a Newfoundland dish. But, in all of my years, I’ve never heard a non-Newfoundlander ever speak of it. And, in the case where I made mention of it, they had no idea what I was talking about. So, if this is the case with you, let me try to explain the concept of a touton is the most basic way possible.

WHAT ARE TOUTONS?

Toutons are pronounced like this – “tow-tons.” Think of the word cow, but remove the “c” and add a “t”. That’s the first part of the word. The second part sounds like the second half of the word wontons – just remove “won” so that you are left with “tons.” Now, combine the two – “tow-tons.”

Toutons are just bread dough that is pan-fried over very low heat in either salted butter or pork fat. It isn’t easy to find pork fat in my neck of the woods, so I used salted butter which I combined with a little bit of olive oil so that the butter wouldn’t burn. That’s a little trick you can use at home too when cooking anything in butter, especially over high heat. Use a ratio of half to one. So for every tablespoon of butter, use half a tablespoon of olive oil.

My mom would make toutons only on the days when she made a large batch of homemade bread. Unlike nowadays where we make one loaf of bread using the Dutch Oven method or throw some ingredients together in a bread machine, my mom made 5-7 loaves of bread by hand at least once a week. You see, Dear Reader, bread was served with many meals in rural Newfoundland back in the day. It was an inexpensive and easy way to make the main part of the meal stretch further which saved money. For example, I can’t ever remember not having a slice of bread with store-bought mac and cheese or Kraft Dinner!

With all of that said, you have two options here. You can make dough from scratch, but a quick and easy, affordable and delicious substitute is store-bought frozen pizza dough. That is exactly what I used here and it was perfect!

INGREDIENTS NEEDED FOR THIS RECIPE

The following is a list of the ingredients needed to prepare this Newfoundland Touton Breakfast recipe. For exact amounts and measurements, refer to the printable recipe card located near the bottom of this post.

• Dough – You can make bread dough from scratch or you can use frozen pizza dough. Either way, you will need one pound of prepared dough.
• Flour – Just plain flour for dusting. Two tablespoons worth will do it.
• Oil – Any good cooking oil will do. I use light olive oil because I have that on hand at all times.
• Butter – Use salted butter if possible. It has more flavour.
• Toppings – Traditionally molasses is the most popular topping, but a little dollop of homemade jam and a little bit of thick cream is also really good!

HOW TO MAKE A NEWFOUNDLAND TOUTON BREAKFAST

Evenly divide the dough into 8 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball and set it on a floured cutting board. Dust the tops of the dough balls with flour and cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel. Set the dough balls aside for 25-30 minutes to rest and rise.

When you are ready to prepare the toutons, add the cooking oil and butter to a large skillet over low heat. Don’t be tempted to increase the heat to cook the toutons faster. Toutons are best when fried slowly on a lower heat.

Once the dough balls have rested, they should have flattened out a bit. If they have not, go ahead and use the palm of your hand to flatten the dough balls to about a ½ inch thick. Add 4 balls of dough to the skillet while maintaining as much space between each of them as possible. Keeping the heat low, fry the dough until they are a deep, golden brown. This will take about 4-5 minutes. Flip them over and fry for an additional 4-5 minutes.

Remove the toutons from the skillet and transfer them to a sheet pan lined with a wire cooling rack. Set them into a 250 degrees F preheated oven while you cook the remaining 4 dough balls.

Once the toutons have all been prepared and are resting in the preheated oven, go ahead and prepare as much bacon and as many eggs as you will need to serve your family. To serve, plate one or two toutons per person. Toutons are traditionally served with a good drizzle of fancy molasses, however, some people like to eat them with a spoonful of homemade jam smeared over top.

MOLASSES 101

There are basically three types of molasses – light, dark, and blackstrap. If you boil cane sugar once, you will get light molasses. If you boil it twice, you’ll get dark molasses. So, boiling it three times must mean that you’ll get blackstrap molasses. Remember, the darker the molasses (blackstrap) the less sweet and more bitter it is.

Never use blackstrap molasses in a recipe unless instructed to do so by the author of the recipe. You can use light or dark without changing the taste drastically. There are also sulphured and unsulphured molasses. The difference between the two is that the sulphured molasses has been chemically treated with preservatives. Nearly 100% of the time, I use unsulphured light molasses. In most cases, the jar will read Fancy Molasses.