French Toast

I promised this recipe to a bunch of people last week, and I’m really sorry that I haven’t been able to post it until today. Last week was quite a challenge, as you know if you follow me on social media. (If you don’t, please do here, here and here.)

Anyway, better late than never, as I always say. Here’s a recipe for a super yummy and sweet breakfast treat, Baked French Toast with Cinnamon Sugar Topping. This is perfect with a mug of coffee, so start your day right by brewing some!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×9″ glass baking pan with cooking spray or butter. Use unsalted if you don’t want to have a salty crust on your French toast. Then, tear up about 5 cups of bread and arrange the pieces inside the pan. I used an assortment of regular loaf, whole wheat loaf and pandesal. I like to store bread in the freezer, and this dish is a great way to use up that stash.

I really had fun tearing up these bread pieces

In a bowl, whisk together 5 eggs (1 egg for each cup of bread), 2 cups of whole milk, 1/2 cup each of brown and white sugar, and 2 tablespoons of vanilla.

Yes, this is another fattening recipe, I’m afraid.

Pour the custard over the bread, making sure that each piece is moistened. I like to press the bread down, bringing some of the liquid up to the top. Refrigerate for a few minutes and allow to soak.

While this is happening, combine 1/3 cup each of flour and brown sugar , plus 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a separate bowl.

Take a stick of cold butter (must be cold, this is important), and mash it into the flour and sugar mixture until little pebbles are formed. Try your best to keep this cold, otherwise you will end up with boulders instead of pebbles. Again, if you don’t want this to be too salty, use unsalted butter. Or you can also opt not to add more salt to the mix.

See, my butter ended up warming up faster than I wanted it to, so I had rather large pebbles

Sprinkle topping over the entire casserole. Then, pop in the oven to bake. If you want the finished product to be soft and squishy, keep this in the oven for 30-35 minutes. For a more firm, slightly dryer French toast casserole, bake for 40-45 minutes.

One last look before going into the oven

That’s it! This is really nice eaten warm, but also good when cold. Next time, I’ll try to make a version with apples in it. Yum! Oh, one last note, this recipe is a cross between The Pioneer Woman, Rachel Ray, and one more recipe I found online that I cannot remember anymore. Enjoy!

Baked French Toast with Cinnamon Sugar Topping

2014-04-10 07:46:04

French toast, done differently.

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Ingredients

5 cups torn up bread
2 cups whole milk
5 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbsp vanilla

For the topping

1 stick butter
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x9" glass baking pan with butter or cooking spray. Arrange the torn bread pieces in the pan.
In a bowl, make a custard by whisking together the milk, eggs, sugars and vanilla.
Pour custard over the bread, making sure that each piece is moistened. Refrigerate and allow to soak. You can actually prepare ahead up to this point and let the casserole soak overnight.

Prepare the topping

Combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.
Mash cold butter into the dry ingredients using a fork to form pebbles.
Sprinkle the topping over the soaked bread.

Bake uncovered for

30-35 minutes if you want a soft and squishy consistency, 40-45 minutes if you want your French toast to be more firm.

Notes

Enjoy!

By Mrs C

Adapted from assorted online recipes

At Home With MrsC https://blissbysam.com/

Good morning!

One of the great things that’s come out of my leaving the workforce to focus more on being a mom is my learning to become a morning person. Waking up before 8AM has always been a challenge for me.

You would think that I’d be up and about by 7AM at the latest considering my 9AM clock in time at the office. But in truth, I’d be lucky to be out of bed and functional before 8:30. That explains why I was always late for work.

It wasn’t as bad when I started working close to home as it was when I would report to a Makati office. But anyway, enough about my delinquent past, after all I think I’ve been making up for it in recent weeks.

I now typically get up – as in functioning and moving about, not just awake – between 5:30 and 6AM! Can you imagine that? Yeah, never thought I’d be able to do that either. But my weekdays have been starting out that early for the last two months, with, of course, the occasional lazy morning exception.

Since I’ve been up so early, I’ve actually learned to start my day by eating breakfast. Yay! I think this is a tremendous breakthrough from having started my mornings with a hurried cup of coffee for the last five or so years. I’ve never been a morning person, so this is a definite first for me.

The only downside is I find myself tired and sleepy by 6PM, but amazingly I manage to pull through until after the little guy is fast asleep. Next up on my agenda is finding out how to have more energy throughout the day, and I already know that the answer is exercise. Lol.

So anyway, the point of this post is that I prepared a really great breakfast for my kiddo today. We both love French Toast, and I thought I’d make ours a little more exciting in the form of (his) Cheesy and (my) Milky French Toasts.

Of course, this is nothing more than cheese spread or condensed milk sandwiched in between two slices of bread, dipped in egg and milk and cooked with a little margarine (I use margarine because I don’t like the taste of butter *gasp!*).

I tried the cheesy version once with sliced cheese and found that it was tough keeping the bread slices together when dipping and flipping, so I shifted to cheese spread. The milky version is inspired by my oh so favorite Milk Toast from Kopi Roti but with the condensed milk sandwiched instead of on top of the bread. I love condensed milk. Uh-huh, this is why I’m fat.

I also prefer to use frozen old bread for French Toast, since it doesn’t go all soggy on me. I usually place old bread in the freezer straight away for mornings like this one.

Cheesy and Milky French Toast

You will need:

Frozen Sliced Bread – I used both wheat and white bread, mostly ends!
Cheese Spread – I used Cheez Whiz
Condensed Milk – I used Carnation Condensada

Two Eggs
About 1/3 Cup of Milk – I used Magnolia low fat milk
Plus: Margarine and Pancake Syrup!

Step-By-Step:

Whisk the milk and eggs together in a bowl until it becomes pale yellow and frothy.
Spread condensed milk or cheese spread between two slices of bread. Don’t put too much or it will run over the sides of the bread and make a mess in your pan.
Dunk the sandwiches into the egg and milk mixture. You will need to soak these a little longer than usual because there are two slices of bread that you need to moisten, plus the bread slices are frozen.
Heat a frying pan, spread some margarine (or butter, if that’s what you prefer), wait for it to sizzle then place the bread on top. I like to put a little bit more margarine on the slice that’s facing up so that it browns nicely when I flip it.
Brown to your liking, and you’re done!

I like my French Toast extra toasted, so it may look overdone to you, but it’s just right for me. So sorry for the out-of-focus photos. The Blackberry camera sucks bigtime.

Milky French Toast made with whole wheat bread

Cheesy french toast made with white bread

Serve hot with more butter or margarine (if you wish, but I don’t add any more) and topped with pancake syrup!

Enjoy!

Recipe: Baked French Toast With Cinnamon Sugar Topping

Recipe: Cheesy and Milky French Toast

Cheesy and Milky French Toast