Stuffed French Toast

This weekend some of our great friends were in town visiting us. TJ's favorite breakfast is French Toast, so I naturally wanted to make him some killer French Toast on Saturday morning. I think that there are some real keys to making great French Toast. The first thing that you need to do is plan ahead and select a great bread that will give you a great texture and excellent flavor (I chose a nice egg challah this morning). Once you have your bread you need to slice it the night before and allow your bread slices to dry out a bit overnight. The bread will act like a sponge when it is dry and soak up more of the egg mixture.



For my egg mix I like to use about 1 egg per 2 1/2 slices of bread, 1 tsp milk or cream, 1/2 tsp cinnimon, and 1/8 tsp nutmeg per each slice of toast. I place it all in a large bowl and whisk to until the mix is smooth. I think that an emmersion blender works great for the blending of your egg mix. Once I have my mix smooth and creamy I dump it into a 8X8 baking dish for the soaking of the dried slices. I always allow my bread to soak for 15-20 seconds on each side in the egg mix before placing it on the griddle. While your slices cook on their first side you can whip up 8 oz of softened cream cheese with 2 T of butter and 1 cup of pecans. You could also add some fruit to the filling, but I chose to add the fruit to the top of the toast. Once you turn your slices you simply need to scoop up a large dollup of the filling and place it on top of half of the slices. The cream cheese mixture will melt slightly while it waits to be topped by the other slice of toast. Once the slices are cooked through top the cream cheese halves with the non-cream cheese halves and remove from the griddle. I think that it is good at this point to slices the sandwich like toast pairs in half to make it easier to plate and eat. Since TJ was suffering from a brutal sinus cold I wanted to get him some extra vitamin C in the form of some orange slices. These particular orange slices I cut off, rather than peeled off, the outer skin to make them easier to eat. Finish it all off with a little powdered sugar and syrup and you are good to go. Stuffed French Toast is a great way to take a simple dish up a few notches without having to do a whole lot more. Don't settle for plain slices of French Toast, go gourmet. You will love it!!