A Toast to French Toast!

A thank you goes out to Red and her beau for passing along this particular piece of inspiration--French Toast Muffins! They told me about their creation and I was immediately intrigued by the hybrid of a bread pudding of sorts and muffins, resulting in the French Toast love child! They spoke of the usual ingredients (eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon) but instead of using slices of basic bread, they chose challah, torn up and stuffed into their muffin tins! Now, I don't have any muffin tins, odd as that may sound, but I did have some disposable foil mini loaf pans that were rattling around in the cupboard, so I used one of those for my own modest repast. Use whatever suitable ingredients you may have on hand or those found in your favorite recipe for French Toast and set to work. My version was very easy came out quite well. A spritz of Cointreau or brandy might be a nice finishing touch to the syrup added to the top of your muffins/loaves and certainly feel free to add in some chopped nuts such as pecans, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts (and crumbled, crispy bacon...?). Whatever you do, this is a perfectly portable dish, be it loaf or muffin, to be delivered to a friend's brunch table or simply enjoyed for breakfast at home with steaming coffee, fresh juice and of course, a liberal slathering of butter! Grab on the way to work or consider as a dessert, topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce!

'The French Daily' included my musings on French Toast here! Scroll down on the site, the feature is on the right.

French Toast Loaf
(Serves four comfortably for a lovely breakfast accompaniment)
Ingredients
4 x 6 1/2-inch foil loaf pan 
4 challah rolls, torn apart by hand
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (or maple syrup)
1/2 TB ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp lemon zest from fresh lemon
A few fresh grinds of black pepper
Pinch or two salt

Method
Pre-heat 400-degree oven. Lightly coat pan with butter or a few sprays of Pam. Whisk together wet ingredients in a serviceable bowl and add in spices. This is where the few drops of liqueur could be added in as well before mixing in some chopped nuts. Add challah pieces and coat thoroughly (it is very important to soak all the pieces) mashing it all together with your fingers and tightly molding it together before slipping the mixture into your pan. Spray with Pam. Put into oven for five minutes before reducing heat to 350-degrees for another 25 minutes. Remove from oven and pour maple syrup on top and let rest for five minutes before serving.  

Behold the seemingly layered innards of our loaf! At a quick glance, one might mistake it for a sumptuously good terrine or a gooey mille-feuille pastry!

A warm slice soaked with melted butter about to perform a disappearing act--into my belly! Do enjoy (and don't forget to share)!