Stuffed French Toast with Blueberry Sauce -- Random Recipe #9

Time for another Random Recipe from my cookbook collection.  This week I let me oldest son (who is 6) pick the book and flip to a recipe, he was excited to help :) He picked Taste of Home 1999 Annual Recipes from the bottom bookshelf. The bottom bookshelf is where I keep most of my annual recipes books, mainly Taste of Home, Southern Living, and Sunset.

I love Taste of Home and have enjoyed reading through the homey recipes for years. The annual recipe books are great because they are supposed to have every recipe from the past years magazines in one compact book. There were a bunch of recipes on the page my son flipped to so I had him close his eyes and point to one, lots of fun for a 6 year old, as I'm sure you can imagine. This is the recipe he landed on, Stuffed French Toast with Berry Sauce. My other two will be taking turns picking our Random Recipes as well in the future :)

French Toast is the least served of the breakfast carb trifecta (French toast, waffles, and pancakes) in our house.  We all love waffles, which are picky husband's favorite, so I make those often. Pancakes are so easy that they are a close second choice.  French toast always sounds good but the recipes are often hit or miss and I don't have a tried and true favorite.  Last month I made this White Milk Bread and ended up making French toast with it that turned out perfectly! I think a lot of it had to do with the dense bread, it doesn't sop up too much liquid and get mushy, and I have since decided this is my definite French Toast Bread recipe and whenever the need for French toast arises in the future, I will be baking this loaf.

Stuffed French Toast with Berry Sauce

adapted from Taste of Home 1999 Annual Recipes

*I followed the recipe when I made this but found out I needed to double the mixture to dip the bread in and also the blueberry topping. I am writing the ingredients as written so you may also need to double the milk/egg/vanilla and the Blueberry Sauce ingredients. Feel free to halve the recipe for four servings since one slice is plenty filling. The original recipes says 4-6 servings but I think it's more like 8.

Filling:

1 package 8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon grated orange peel

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

French toast:

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 slices French bread (1 inch thick) I made a loaf this White Milk Bread and it was just enough 

Syrup:

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 and 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, orange peel and cinnamon until smooth; set aside.

In a shallow bowl, combine eggs, milk, and vanilla. Cut a pocket in the crust of each slice of bread. Stuff each pocket with 1 - 2 tablespoons filling.  (This is a little tricky.)

Dip both sides of bread in egg mixture and pat down briefly sopping up some of the egg/milk/vanilla mixture. Fry on a greased (I did not grease mine since it's nonstick) hot griddle (I set my temperature to about 345) for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.

For syrup (not sure why they are calling it syrup here when in the title it is Berry Sauce...), combine water, maple syrup, sugar, and cornstarch in a sauce pan. (I would make sure to use a little of the water to make a cornstarch slurry before adding it all together so it doesn't get lumpy). Bring to a boil; boil for 2 minutes or until thickened. Reduce heat; add blueberries. Simmer for 5-7 minutes or until berries are tender. Serve over French toast.

~~~

I dusted the French Toasts with powdered sugar, isn't that a must?

Here you can see the cream cheese middle.  Now personally I liked the cream cheese / orange combo but my youngest was not liking it much and I think that was because he was expecting the filling to be sweeter, but it really is more a basic cream cheese flavor and you get your sweetness from the blueberry sauce.  You could add some extra sugar to the filling, which I would probably do if making this for kids again.

The kids mostly enjoyed this, except my youngest not liking the filling. I loved it, especially the lovely blueberry maple sauce. Picky husband does not like blueberries or cream cheese so he did not have any, don't worry, I made him something different.  This was a fun recipe to try that I probably would not have made had it not been our Random Recipe for the week.  There are no photos of this recipe in the book so it kind of gets lost with the other recipes, some of which have photos.  The only little problem I had was the the French toast dipping mixture and the blueberry sauce definitely need to be doubled for this to work.  Now that I've found the perfect French Toast bread I am looking forward to making FT more often :)



Nutella Tartine

Time for French Fridays with Dorie! This week I learned something new, a tartine is a French open faced sandwich. I had no idea really, I thought it was some sort of dessert between a torte and a tart or something. Now I know. I love learning new things, always on that quest for knowledge, 'ya know? ;)

I also learned that this...

loaf of freshly baked by me brioche

PLUS

butter, nutella, sea salt (I currently have no Fleur de sel), and plain ole Smuckers Sweet Orange Marmalade (I have no bitter orange marmalade and couldn't find any)

EQUALS


DELICIOUS

and just to switch things up a touch, I made one with Strawberry Peach Champagne Jam, a special one for mommy...

These were happily gobbled up, after I cut them into fourths, the first quarter was gobbled up inside...

(Above is my sweet Kindergartner who was sent home from school early after sustaining a classroom fall, ouch! My poor baby with a goose egg on his forehead. )

and the remaining three quarters were delivered to the back yard, where the kids requested their after school snack while enjoying this unusually warm and sunny February day.

The end :)

Orange Berry Muffins

This is another Tuesdays with Dorie rewind recipe from the early days of TWD. I decided that starting this week I would start back at the beginning of the book and try to work my way through the recipes that I missed in the order they appear in the book. I'm planning on doing this on the "off Tuesdays" since next week we will start the new TWD group with the book, Baking With Julia (so excited!) and only post every other Tuesday.

The first recipe in the book is Orange Berry Muffins, these sounded so delicious and I was happy to give them a try. I love oranges and blueberries, and the recipe calls for buttermilk, which I love using in baked goods for that extra moist crumb.

Orange Berry Muffins

Dorie Greenspan

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange

About 3/4 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

3 Tablespoons honey

1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/3 cup sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup blueberries - fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed) -- I used frozen

Decorating sugar, for topping (optional) -- I skipped this, but kind of wish I wouldn't have

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. -- I had my oven temperature at 350, I like my oven temp a little lower when I'm using silicone bakeware, just personal preference -- Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey and melted butter.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange is strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don't worry about being thorough - the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that's just the way it should be. Just a note, don't leave any clumps of dry flour. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. I had enough for two pans of heart muffins and a small pan of mini muffins.

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes. When fully baked, the tops of the muffins will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

~~~

I made these as an after school snack for my kids and they loved them warm from the oven. I thought they were delicious too, not too sweet, and can be eaten plain or served with butter and honey. Using frozen berries worked out fine but I bet they'd be even better with fresh. As much of a hit as these were fresh from the oven, the next morning the kids weren't liking them as much, I thought they were just fine, but their texture did change a bit, so I'd plan to serve these fresh. It was so fun to finally try the first recipe from Baking From My Home To Yours :)

Orange Almond Heart Tart

Time for French Fridays with Dorie, our recipe this week is an Orange Almond Tart. I was excited about this recipe since I love oranges and almonds and making tarts. This recipe is quite similar to the recipe for French Pear Tarts that we made with Tuesdays with Dorie back in January of 2009.

Dorie's Sweet Tart dough is made in the food processor, I have found that for some reason (not sure why) I always need to add a little extra liquid when making my tart doughs in the food processor so instead of the egg yolk only, I used the whole egg and a couple of tablespoons of water to help the tart dough come together.


Next, pick a tart pan. I figured I'd go with my large heart tart pan since it is almost Valentine's Day and who can resist a heart tart? I did not pre-bake my tart dough, after baking quite a few tarts over the past few years, I've just come to the conclusion that I like my tart dough a little less browned and crunchy that many of the recipes call for. I like it crispy and flaky kind of like a cross between a soft sugar cookie and pie crust.


I used the pat in pan method for the tart dough, which always seems easier to me. Then the tart dough is sent to holiday in the refrigerator for a while the almond cream filling is prepared. I do not keep almond flour on hand but almost always have almonds, and find that you can make a rustic almond meal in the food processor with sliced almonds that works just as well as almond flour and gives it a little more texture. For the filling, instead of two teaspoons rum or one teaspoon vanilla, I switched it up to two teaspoons triple sec (which, according to wikipedia, was invented in France) -- to up the orange flavor and one teaspoon vanilla, since I love vanilla and orange together.


The first photo in this post is my "before baking" shot that I always take. Above is the tart just out of the oven after testing done at only 30 minutes. I had the timer set for 50 minutes per the recipe, but went to check at 30 just because it smelled done to me, and there it was, perfectly golden brown.


And below generously dusted with powdered sugar. Haven't tried this one yet but pretty sure we will love it. Will report back after dinner with the results of the family taste test :) ETA: This tart is so delicious! I think it's my favorite recipe I've made with FFwD so far. My five year old daughter said it was awesome and my three year old son said it was really yummy and wanted a second piece. Everyone else was too full from dinner to try it (tonight was homemade pizza night) but I'm sure that they'll love it as soon as they have some.

Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

Our treat of the week for Tuesdays with Dorie is Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake, picked for us to try by Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort, thank you Jennifer!

Orange zest mixed with sugar above, about to whip in the butter.


Before baking shot above, I used my Wilton Queen of Hearts bundt pan that I've had for almost eight years. I got it shortly after picky husband and I got married -- it was my first bundt pan and is still baking strong :)

After baking shot above, after baking 60 minutes exactly and testing done.

I did not have enough batter to do a second swirl and be able to cover it with batter so I just did the one swirl with about 75% of the swirl ingredients. It didn't swirl too much, but I was just happy the cake didn't break apart after unmolding, which I was nervous about after reading the P&Q section on this cake.

I used all of the swirl ingredients, even the raisins, we are all raisin fans in our house. My youngest and I were the only taste testers so far and we loved it. My favorite part was the aroma while it was baking, thanks to the fresh orange zest, which added so much flavor to this cake! Another delicious bundt cake from Baking From My Home to Yours :)

Orange Scented Scones -- Sweet Melissa Sundays

Time for Sweet Melissa Sundays! Today's treat was picked by Robin at Lady Craddock’s Bakery -- you can find the recipe for these delicious Orange Scented Scones here at her wonderful blog :) I baked these up in my Lodge cast iron wedge pan and they turned our beautifully.

Here is the crumbly scone dough before pressing together and into the wedge pan...just enough dough to fit!

Before and after baking shots...

We really enjoy scones and I was very excited to make these, in the Sweet Melissa Baking Book you have the option of using oat flour or grinding up your own oats in the food processor. I used the food processor and purposely left my oats a little chunky, I love oatmeal in baked goods.

I accidentally skipped brushing the tops of the scone dough with cream and sprinkling with sugar before I put them in the oven, so I made a glaze to drizzle on top after they were baked with 1/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate (warmed up in the microwave) and about 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, I added about 1/2 cup powdered sugar at a time to the melted orange juice concentrate and just kept adding until I reached the right consistency. This glaze was great and packed a strong orange punch.

The scones were amazing. Light and fluffy and a little crumbly from the oats. Very tender and flavorful, I'm the kind of person who loves scones with butter and jam or honey but these didn't need any toppings and were wonderful plain with hot tea for breakfast. Thank you for a wonderful pick, Robin! This is a recipe I would make again for sure :)

~~~

One year ago today: Lithuanian Dinner -- Mushroom Stuffed Cepelinai