Sunday, August 14, 2011

Welcome to NC Baked French Toast

I've officially moved. Not the usual blog announcement kind of move... I'm on the same host site and server, all the usual. In fact I've been reminded its time to renew my domain name, so I may actually get around to linking that up soon.
No, this time its the good old fashioned move. The kind that requires lots of boxes.

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Two days of driving later, Goodbye Boston! Hello North Carolina! Its hot, its humid, but hey it is August... its all down hill from here!

First night was the traditional order pizza and colapse sort of evening. Day two we... well, Brian and his brother... emptied the truck. Brian's sister and I started unpacking! So we had a fair amount of the kitchen out of boxes by dinner, and Brian made us a lovely Chicken Parmesan. I got adventurous and made a soak-overnight-bake-in-the-morning French Toast.

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I've done one/two slices at a time in the frying pan French Toast. I've done stuffed French Toast. But this was new. I really like how it turned out! I started with a pretty basic recipe, and modified it based on what we had on hand. Brian stuck it in the oven before I got out of bed, so I didn't do the final "flip the bread over" step to make sure it was evenly moist. I liked the effect though... the crunchyness was not overwhelming and gave a nice texture contrast. Especially after pouring the melted butter and brown sugar on top. Mmmmmm. It was so good, we didn't even use the maple syrup.

Baked French Toast
modified from recipes of assorted contributors on allrecipes.com

loaf crusty bread (can be a couple days old!)
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar (approximately, anyways...)

Cut crusty bread diagonally in 2in slices. (My bread was pre-sliced at the bakery, this time.) Arrange bread in the bottom of a rectangular baking dish, such as pyrex.
In a medium bowl, beat eggs, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon until combined. Pour over the bread, making sure to drip it down all parts of bread that are showing. Cover (my pyrex has a matching lid, or you can use foil or plastic wrap) and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, take the pan out of the fridge while you heat the oven to 350*F. This will let the pan warm a little so you're less likely to shock the pyrex (and break it). Turn the bread over to make sure both sides are moist. (I mentioned before we skipped this step - still turned out fantastic!) Bake covered with foil for 20 minutes. (I think we had it uncovered... oops? Again, loved it anyways!) While it is baking, heat the butter in a small saucepan. Once it is melted through, remove from heat and mix in the brown sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Pour as much as looks good over the french toast and bake for another 20 minutes uncovered. Serve with maple syrup if desired, but I found the brown sugar butter was syrup enough! :)

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Possible modifications;
* sprinkle with raisins before baking.
* use a mix of milk and cream or half and half (original recipe suggested 2 cups milk and 1 1/2 cup half and half or using JUST half and half. I modified it partly because milk is what I had on hand and partly for the calories!)
* make it in the morning, if you forget the night before! Stick it in the fridge for an hour or two, turn the bread a couple extra times to be sure its soaking in, and bake like normal!
* use as much sauce as looks good! I cut the amount down a good bit and still didn't use it all. Top it till you like the look.
* alternate sauce; I didn't have corn syrup and that looked like too much butter! A phrase I'll have to unlearn here in the South ;)
3/4 cup butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup; heat until bubbling. Pour over bread and egg mixture.



Anyways, everyone claimed to enjoy it, and I had a blast cooking it. It felt really nice to be set up in a new kitchen - that I don't have to share! ...besides Brian. ;) - and back to playing with food. I miss it a lot during those hectic school months. I've got a couple of weeks left before the school year starts. I don't know yet if I'll be at the front of the classroom or the back (Masters degree still lurks...) but I intend to cram as many posts in before it starts and life gets frantic again as I can!

Joyfully,
Kristen

2 comments:

  1. Kristen,
    What a terrific photo! You certainly don't look like you've been moving for 2 days!!
    The french toast photos made me hungry - wowie!

    Hugs!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aww, you're so kind. I've got to admit, I could go for some french toast about now... :)

      Delete

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