Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Baked Challah French Toast

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I love breakfast foods! When I got to a diner I'm always torn between ordering breakfast or lunch. I love french onion soup but give me some french toast and a poached egg and I'm so happy. It all depends on what everyone else is ordering though. If I am sitting there enjoying my soup and then I get a whiff of bacon and eggs...deep regret. I'm just so indecisive when it comes to this!

Last year Steve and I got a few couples together to go apple picking. Everyone met at our place first for breakfast. That was so much fun for me! I experimented with baked french toast and it was a huge hit! So last weekend when my childhood friend stayed over with her Fiance there was a request for a repeat of this dish. I was happy to make it again but the only problem was that I combined a few different recipes and never wrote down what I did. That was before I started this lovely little blog that forces me to write down recipes! I did find some notes scribbled onto one paper but not enough information was there. Now that I made it again I think I left out a step. Oops. I didn't bake the french toast again with the topping which is what I think I was supposed to do. I didn't have the topping in the oven at all. I'm pretty sure that's wrong now that I think about it. I also feel like 3 cups of milk is a lot. I will try it next time with a little less because it seemed a little wet in the middle and it was cooking at 425 and got nice and browned on top. I think in the future I will cook it for about an hour at 350.

The taste was great! I don't think it was missing anything at all! I would absolutely make this again and now that I have this written down I will be able to perfect it. Wish me Luck!


Ingredients:

French Toast:

1 loaf Challah Bread, cut into 1 inch slices
3 cups whole milk
3 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon

Topping:

1/2 cup butter, melted
2 tbsp dark corn syrup or maple syrup
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts


Directions:

1. In a baking dish layer slices of bread so that they are touching and rip a slice of bread into pieces to fill in any holes. Make two layers.

2. In a bowl combine eggs, milk, sugar, extracts, nutmeg and cinnamon. Pour this mixture over bread. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

3. Next morning, preheat oven to 350. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan melt butter and take off the heat. Add corn syrup/maple syrup, brown sugar and nuts. Stir to combine and it will make a paste.

4. Spread mixture over bread that soaked up eggs and milk.

Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


Like I said above, I did this wrong. I baked it before I put the topping on. This is what it looked like puffed up and golden.

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Here's the topping!
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16 comments:

Bob said...

I'm with you on getting breakfast or lunch at diners. I can never decide, I almost always wind up getting pancakes. That looks great, I love french toast. I've never had it baked though, I'm not sure why. I'll have to fix that.

Lucy said...

Love, Love, Love THIS!!! ;-)

Elizabeth said...

Yum - I love challah french toast!

Michele said...

Bob - It's so hard to decide between the two!

Thanks Lucy!

Hi Elizabeth! Isn't it so much better than plain old white bread?!

Melissa said...

I love french toast and this one looks especially yummy!

DDpie said...

Ok, first, something that looks that good is NOT "wrong". LOL Second......YUMMMO!

Sophie said...

I LOVE french toast :)!!! I'd eat this every day, yep :D.

Sophie said...

oh btw, hominy is made from corn but has quite a different texture, it's soo good, more meaty than corn--you should try it!

The Blonde Duck said...

I have the same problem you do. I usually just demand Ben take me two nights in a row! This looks absolutely heavenly.

Dawn said...

Oh I just saw this somewhere and they put bacon in it.
Challah really is the best though. Have you ever tried the baked croissant french toast? I think it was on Barefoot Contessa

Daziano said...

I discovered Challah bread not a long time ago... and I totally love it! Never thought of making French toast with it! Thaks for the idea!

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Challah bread makes the very best French toast! I never tried making it as a whole loaf --I usually slice it and dip and fry each piece at a time but you way looks so easy. I'll definitely try it next time i have over night guests.

Cate said...

Mmm, love baked french toast. Paula Deen has a recipe for it that we like, a praline version. Ok, now it's 11 pm and I'm craving baked french toast. ;)

Mary said...

This looks like a wonderful recipe. With Easter coming this would be a lovely dish for breakfast.

David said...

This is looking delicious. I love french toast. Recipe is not very tough, i must try.
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Amanda said...

This is the BEST french toast recipe. I have cooked it for my entire family and it's a consensus. YUM!!