So this one is....a little different. This recipe belonged to my great-grandmother and I found it in the recipes I got from my grandmother. As I said before, my great-grandmother died when I was very young and I don't remember much of her cooking, and this is not a recipe my grandmother ever made. In fact, upon asking her, she doesn't remember ever making it herself but does remember my great-grandmother making it from time to time.
I've also never made it before. Regular french toast yeah sure, but not like this. I know I can't fool you guys, you're too smart for that, so I'll just own up to the fact that this is far from perfect because it's my first go and I'll include all the things I learned to help improve it down the line too. So without further ado, here we go!
You'll Need The Following;
- 3 cups berries of choice
- Maple syrup
- Vanilla extract
- Lemon juice
- Salt
- A loaf of bread, sliced thick
- 6 eggs
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- Cinnamon
- Powdered sugar (not shown)
I left out amounts for the syrup, extract, juice, salt and cinnamon because the amounts written in the original recipe were not nearly enough to make it anything but bland, and it seriously needed some sugar in with those berries. It also called for strictly blueberries, but 3 cups worth is a bit too expensive with current prices and it was far cheaper to just buy frozen mixed berries instead.
In this case you can actually sub the heavy cream with milk, I just happened to have some heavy cream left over from another recipe and wanted to use it up but since you're not making anything stiff with the whipping cream it's perfectly fine to use milk as an alternative.
For once with something baked I'm not going to tell you guys to preheat your oven first! gasp
Put your berries in a pot and set the heat to high until it looks more like the bottom picture than the top one. Time will vary depending on if your fruit is fresh or frozen and what kind you have. Once it gets that way turn the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
After that add in your syrup, salt, lemon juice, vanilla extract and powdered sugar. Add enough to override any bitterness from the berries - I went with 2 tablespoons of everything but the sugar because I didn't add any sugar but now I see that I should have so I'd go with the tablespoons and then just sugar to taste.
Let the mixture cool entirely before moving on to the next step.
Take your bread and cut out 24 rounds - one for the bottom and one for the top of each muffin.
Grease. Your. Pan. I will probably say this every time but I've made that mistake enough times to know that it needs to be reminded or else people will forget XD
Put a round in the bottom of each one, then layer in some of the thickened berry mixture from the last step. Just a little, maybe a spoonful or two, then put in another round on top.
Take your heavy whipping cream plus a little more maple syrup, vanilla extract, salt, sugar and cinnamon and mix them together. Make sure it's to taste enough that you'd drink it at that point and try to stick more to the sugar and cinnamon for flavor if you can. Once you have that mix in your eggs so you get a mixture like what's pictured, bubbles and all. And make sure you mix the eggs in last - no need to be risking anything by eating raw eggs while you're taste testing this mixture.
Pour the mixture over the top and let it settle in as you preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Yours should look better than this - I severely underestimated how much bread I'd need to cover everything and the size of the rounds I'd need so there wasn't enough bread to soak it all up and it puddled in some places.
Bake for 30 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool completely and viola!
I added too much mixture to the middle so they didn't stay in one piece, and as I said I underestimated how much bread I'd need and the size of my rounds. These were also super bland because I followed the set amounts for the syrup and juice and all and added no extra sugar. I fixed that by making a cream cheese icing and adding a dusting of powdered sugar, but still. Just means y'all can learn from my mistakes I guess, though ^^
Banner was made by me in Photoshop. All other pictures here were taken by me specifically for this post. I have been a home cook for over a decade, and any questions or comments about this recipe are encouraged!
If you like this content resteems, upvotes and comments are much appreciated <3