Strawberry Shortcake French Toast

So one of my good friends had a birthday party recently and I made Strawberry Shortcake for the event. I used a recipe from my go-to dessert diva, Paula Deen. It was out of this world. I made a couple changes and used the leftovers to build some spectacular french toast.


12-14 slices of bread, depending upon thickness
2 cups milk
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened

1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups whipped cream

3 cups strawberries, diced

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat griddle or skillet with butter or cooking spray and heat to medium. Mix milk, eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and nutmeg together in large mixing bowl. Turn each slice of bread to coat in batter and transfer to skillet. Cook toast to golden brown and transfer to baking sheet in oven to keep warm while remaining cook.

While bread is cooking, beat together cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk until well combined. Fold in whipped cream gently.

In a mixing bowl, turn strawberries, sugar and water together.

Spread cream cheese mixture on one slice of toast, top with strawberry mixture and another slice of toast. Top with extra whipped cream if desired. 

Stuffed French Toast Casserole

Hey there!

So I'm sure you all have noticed by now that a good majority of my recipes are stovetop recipes. For some reason, I don't really use my oven too much besides finishing off the meal or baking. My very first blog post was for an Amaretto French Toast. Jon asked for french toast the other day and I was just not feeling standing over the stove flipping 12 pieces of toast, y'know? So I decided I would make it a casserole, which I've done before and we loved. It comes out kind of like a breakfast bread pudding. We love stuffed french toast, so I stuffed the bread with a cream cheese icing. The recipe is similar to my regular french toast, minus the amaretto. I'm sticking with what I know tastes good on this one. Hope you guys enjoy this!

12-14 pieces sweet bread
2 cups milk
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
Filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 lb powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
Glaze:
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease casserole dish with butter. In large mixing bowl, combine milk, eggs, flour, brown sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, ground cinnamon, and ground nutmeg. Whisk together until smooth.

In a separate medium bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and almond extract until smooth.

Spread cream cheese icing on bread and sandwich together. Cut "sandwiches" into 6-8 small squares. Lay half of the pieces in casserole dish and pour milk and egg mixture over top of first layer. Layer rest of pieces on top and pour remaining batter over top. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

While casserole is baking, melt stick of butter on medium heat on stove. Whisk in sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon until combined. Lower heat to low to keep warm while casserole finishes.

After the 25 minutes, remove casserole from oven and pour brown sugar sauce over casserole. Place back in oven for another 5 minutes. Serve with any additional cream cheese icing and brown sugar sauce drizzled over top.

Tip: when you put the casserole back in with the brown sugar sauce, it may be a good idea to put a baking sheet under casserole dish to make sure the sauce doesn't bubble over into oven.

First Blog- Amaretto French Toast

Aloha!

So everyone is always asking me for the recipes of all the crazy concotions I whip up. I've decided I'll start a blog, easy for me to keep track of my recipes and share them with everyone! It makes my life a lot easier because I've been searching everywhere for a scrapbook/ recipe book, where you can basically build your own cookbook. I saw one a while ago and decided against getting it and I've been kicking myself ever since. With this, I don't have to do any scrapbook work, just typing, which I'm pretty good at. I can't make any promises about my grammar or spelling, haha.

So, I figured my very first blog I should start with the very first recipe I mastered, French Toast. I used to be a horrendous cook. One of the first meals I tried to pull off for Jon (my fiance) was a Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole. After 4 hours in the oven, the outside of the chicken was like rubber, the inside was bleeding and the rice was stuck to the bottom. We were starving so we threw away the chicken and braved through the overcooked recipe. Jon is definitely a keeper. I attempted it again a few years later and realized my mistake before was not foiling it before putting it in the oven.

Anyways, even though I couldn't cook chicken to save my life, I was always amazing at French Toast. Anytime I'd stay over a friends house or go on a trip with the family, I would make French Toast for one of the breakfasts. I've experimented over the years and finally came up with what I think is amazing French Toast. I usually make it with wheat toast because I always have that on hand, but it is also amazing with Sweet Bread. The recipe below serves 14 slices of standard wheat toast.

Please give me feedback if you do try it out at cookingwithcait@gmail.com . I swear I'm not that much of a loser that I created an email for a blog no one will read besides my friends. However, you need a gmail email to start the blog. :)

Amaretto French Toast with Cream Cheese Icing

12-14 slices of bread, depending upon thickness

2 cups milk
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp Amaretto liquor
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

8oz softened cream cheese
1 lb powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp Amaretto liquor

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat griddle or skillet with butter or cooking spray and heat to medium. Mix milk, eggs, flour, sugar, Amaretto, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and nutmeg together in large mixing bowl. Turn each slice of bread to coat in batter and transfer to skillet. Cook toast to golden brown and transfer to baking sheet in oven to keep warm while remaining cook.

For cream cheese icing, beat softened cream cheese with electric mixer until fluffy. Slowly add sifted powdered sugar and beat in. Beat in both vanilla extract and Amaretto.

I usually take the cream cheese icing and make french toast sandwiches with cream cheese in the middle, but you can also use it over the french toast in place of syrup. Or you can skip the icing altogether and enjoy with good ole maple syrup! Enjoy and don't forget to send in your feedback, pictures, etc! cookingwithcait@gmail.com

2 Slices without Cream Cheese Icing is 306 Calories
Cream Cheese Icing has 183 calories per serving, 14 servings in recipe.