Baked French Toast

Breakfast
Originally uploaded by Miss Martini (AnnaLynn M.)
My friend asked me to post the recipe if the baked French toast I made this morning was good. I thought it was pretty delicious so I will share it here.

Most of the recipes I found called for soaking the bread overnight so the time always said 9 hours or 15 hours. I'm sorry, I am impatient and don't really have time for that. I did find a recipe that had the time as 1.5 hours so I went for that. I used a little bit of Paula Deen's recipe and another recipe. Basically, it's a bread pudding.

Ingredients

•  French bread baguette (you won't use the whole thing - I think I used 1/2 a baguette)
• 1-1/2 cups of half & half
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 a teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

Slice baguette. I made them maybe an 1/2 inch to 1-inch thick. Depending on the size of the casserole dish, you want to slice enough to line the bottom of the dish. I overlapped my slices and then squished them down once I poured the custard base.

Mix the half & half, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. You might want to add some nutmeg. I always like nutmeg with my cinnamon. Dip the bread in the mixture and let them soak for a little bit. I was soaking and slicing. Place the slices in the casserole dish and line the bottom. I liked layer the pieces but you don't have to do that. I then poured the custard base on top. I only poured the base so that it was level with the top of the bread. I just discarded the extra custard.

I covered it with a plastic wrap and let the french toast sit in the refrigerator for about an hour to 1-1/2 hours.

I then baked the casserole for 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees. While the French toast is baking you can poach your fruit.

I decided that instead of the praline or brown sugar topping that a lot of people use, I wanted to poach some fruit. I was inspired by my friend, Jen, who poached some plums. I picked up some pluots and plums from the farmers market. I also ended up running into one of my former students walking his dog. He's a good kid so it was nice to see him and see how his first week was.

Recipe for the poached pluots & plums -
I really like David Lebovitz's How To Poach Pears post. Very helpful and informative.

Poached fruit 

• 2 plums and 2 pluots - sliced
• 1/2 cup of  red wine
• 1/2 cup of cointreau
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water

I guess the trick is to not make this mixture super sweet so you will have to taste your mixture.

In a saucepan, that is deep enough so you can add your fruit, boil the wine, cointreau, sugar and water. Once the mixture comes to a boil add the fruit and bring to a low simmer. You will need to cover the fruit so that it stays submerged. I cut a piece of parchment into a circle and just laid it on top of the fruit. I let is simmer for about 10 minutes and then removed the fruit from the mixture with a slotted spoon. I threw in a few handfuls of dried blueberries in the warm liquid and let them rehydrate.

I then fried up some chicken apple sausage.

Once the French toast is done, cut and serve with the poached fruit and sprinkle with powdered sugar. I used the liquid as syrup.