Friday Food: French Toast Bake

I do like to keep things topical here at Florence Finds, sharing seasonal suggestions and perhaps something like last week’s salad would be more appropriate for this week’s Friday food, although I would like to take a moment to note how excellent the timing was on that one given the weather you’re all enjoying.

Today’s Friday food how ever comes to me from you, across the Atlantic. It was my breakfast when we stayed at the beautiful and homely Kern River Inn and Virginia, the owner, made it for our breakfast. I asked for the recipe straight away and heard about how it was a ‘church supper’ dish. She told me how as a child she used to go to church suppers, where all the old ladies in a town would take along a dish and get together. The groups often produced booklets of cherished recipes and it was from one of these that she first found this recipe.

It was seriously one of the best breakfast dishes I’ve ever tasted, and can apparently be made with countless variations if you season the egg, milk and butter mix to create a savoury wash and omit the sweet ingredients, instead adding your choice of savoury additions. Ham, spinach and cheese was Virginia’s particular recommendation. I also think it would make a great winter dessert warm from the oven with ice cream, custard or cream.

Ingredients (Serves 8)
10 slices of cubed thick sliced (dense) bread
3 oz sweetened cream cheese spread (mix with a desert spoon of icing sugar and a little vanilla essence, to taste)
8 eggs
1.5 cups of skimmed milk
6 tablespoons of melted butter
3 tablespoons of apricot preserve (or substitute fresh fruit – wetter fruits are better, like peaches)
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 and grease your baking dish.
• Whisk the eggs, milk, melted butter and vanilla in a large mixing bowl.
• Add your cubed bread and stir careful then put the mixture into your baking dish.
• Spoon dollops of the sweetened cream cheese and apricot preserve onto the top.
• Bake for 45 minutes or until the toast is puffed up and browned on top.

Serve with maple syrup if you have a really sweet tooth.

Thank you for the recipe Virginia!

Enjoy and happy weekend, don’t forget to pop back for Friday Frock later!

Love,
Rebecca
xo