You’ll End Up Wanting The Whole Plate For Yourself
I don’t care; take me to the Recipe!
When we at ARS think of Sunday, it's a time for family, having fun, and spending the day cooking. This Sunday we wanted to whip up something a little different and try our hand at Stuffed French Toast. In theory, a very easy recipe. In practice? Well. It’s still easy to do, but experimenting makes it far more fun.
This is a VERY subjective and experimental recipe. There are a couple different reasons for this. How firm you want your bread to be is going to affect how much egg it can soak up without distorting and turning into goo. However, it’s also going to affect the final taste and texture. The ratio of fruit to cream cheese is going to vary wildly based on which brand of fruit jam you buy and how much liquid still exists in that. So, if you want a hard and fast “here is the amounts you need, here is what you’ll get” recipe, we suggest checking out one of the others that we’ve linked in our additional reading section at the bottom. It’s ok if that’s what you’re in the mood for! This isn’t a recipe for when you need breakfast on the table 20 minutes ago. It’s more for when you want to spend Sunday experimenting with your family and having fun in the kitchen and if there ends up being several versions of food at the end, you win!
On to the recipe!
Ingredients
Bread - We suggest either Challa or a huge loaf of Italian. It’s the size that matters as much as anything.
Cream Cheese
Slivered almonds - to taste - we suggest at least ¼ per two slices of bread, but it’s up to you on how much texture/crunch you want in your mix
Sour Jelly or Preserves - We chose sour cherry
Milk or heavy cream, or a mix if you want- only about 2 TBSPs though.
Eggs - you want roughly 2 eggs per slice of bread
Cinnamon
1 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
Tools
-Cast iron griddle or a skillet
- mixer
-Pie pan or other large shallow dish
-Bread knife
-Paring knife
Our bread really is 2 inches wide, it’s so large though it doesn’t look like it.
To start with, a note on breads.
Although we suggest using either Challa or Italian, you can do this recipe with a loaf of brioche bread. The important thing is that this is a high and thick loaf of bread. You want something that is at least 3- 4 inches wide, and at least two inches high. Yes, this is going to give you really large slices of bread, but that’s the intent here.
Now, grab your loaf of bread and start by slicing it into 2 inch thick slices. So, ideally, your slice should be 2 inches wide, 2 inches thick, and however long.
At this point, you can leave your slices out overnight to firm up, or move on to the next step.
Whatever you decide, when that time has passed, flip over a slice, grab a paring knife and cut a slice that’s roughly 2-3 inches long. You’re looking to form a deep pocket inside of the bread. Do that to all of your slices, and set them to the side for a moment.
Grab your cream cheese and preserves and measure them out in a 2 to one, cream to fruit ratio. You want this to be stiff enough to fill it into the slices, but with enough fruit that you get the taste. Either use a food processor or a fork and mix the two together, adjusting the ratio as needed.
This is roughly how thick ours ended up being after we adjusted the ratio several times. You also definitely need additional help when trying to fill the slices with your filling.
Now is when you’ll need to get a second set of hands. We had a few willing participants who were able to help us, in exchange for future delicious food. Have your partner hold open a slice of bread with two forks, while you use a third fork to fill the bread with your cream cheese mix.
Yum Delicious eggy mix! The base to any good French toast.
Once all of your bread is filled, mix together your eggs, dairy, cinnamon, and sugar into a pie pan, or some other shallow dish.
With how thick the bread is, the additional soaking time is very important to allow it to really seep into the bread. It’s also why we said that you might want to let your bread sit over night so that it can hold up to that extra time.
Lay your bread into the dish and let it soak on one side for 2 minutes. Flip it over and do it for another 2 minutes.
While your bread is soaking, turn your stove on to medium-low, toss in 1 Tbsp of butter and allow it to melt.
And we begin the cooking process! At this point it smells so sweet and eggy, but that shifts as the egg cooks and the surface of the toast browns.
Place one to two slices of bread in your pan at a time, and let them become golden brown, roughly 5 minutes on a side. Flip, add more butter if you need, and allow it to cook for another 5 minutes, or until golden brown.
And here you have two super thick slices of French toast so good you’ll be wanting to keep all of it for yourself.
Plate your delicious Stuffed French Toast and serve with either butter or genuine maple syrup. We tried it with just butter, and it was truly delicious.
So what did you think? Will you be trying this one? Let us know over on our Facebook page and don’t hesitate to share photos! We’d love to see how the recipe turned out for you!
If you ended up here because your stove isn’t maintaining heat evenly though, we can still help! Even with sharing delicious recipes like this, in our work time, we want to keep your home running smoothly. If you’re noticing trouble with any of your major appliances, reach out! We can help you set up an appointment that works for your schedule and figure out what the trouble is.
Give us a call at ((214) 599-0055) or check out our appointment page to get things started.
Additional Reading
Whether you want a more exact recipe, or just more delicious food.
Brown Sugar - Cinnamon Oat Bars