Since Ree is somewhere in D.C. right now with her gushing armpits (sorry for that visual on a cooking blog), we’ve invited a very special guest to host the Tasty Recipe post this week. Quite coincidentally, this lovely lady was also our very first member featured here in the Tasty Kitchen blog. She’s fabulous in so many ways, and we’re so glad to have her here. And boy, has she picked a great recipe to share with us today. Take it away, Alice!

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French toast is one of my most favorite foods to eat any time of the day. When I saw this Tasty Kitchen recipe posted by manda2177, it was love at first sight. It makes ordinary French toast extraordinary. May I introduce you to Stuffed French Toast?

Here’s a list of everything you need: a loaf of French or Italian bread, eggs, milk, butter, cream cheese, cinnamon, and jam or fresh fruit (if you’re like me, you’ll use both). I also added slivered almonds just for the fun of it, but you don’t have to … unless you want to. If you do, let me know when and where I can invite myself over for breakfast. Thanks.

Before you can invite me over for breakfast, you’ll need to know how to make this. Slice a loaf of bread in 2-inch pieces. You should get about six pieces all together, not including the end pieces. Using a paring knife, cut a deep slit across the top in the middle of each slice, approximately 4 inches long (as pictured above). This will form your “pocket.” Once you’re done, set the bread aside.

I decided to go with strawberries for the filling. They were almost too pretty to eat. You could use any fruit or no fruit at all, but I highly recommend strawberries.

Wash the strawberries, remove the stems, and cut slices in each one. Turn them a quarter turn and slice them again, adding them to a bowl.

Next, macerate the strawberries, which is fancy way of saying add a little sugar and mix it in. Set them aside and allow the sugar to release its magic.

Next, add jam to the cream cheese and mix both of them until well combined.

The cream cheese mixture now looks like strawberry yogurt. Yum!

Now comes the fun part! Grab a slice of bread and add about a tablespoon (or as much as you like) of cream cheese filling. Personally, I like about 2 tablespoons per slice. Do the same thing with the fresh fruit. Make sure to close the opening by gently pressing the bread together. This will make frying them easier and less messy. Set the filled slices aside.

Now it’s time to make the egg bath. Mix eggs, milk, and cinnamon together until well mixed. Turn the stove top on to medium-high to preheat the skillet. While your skillet is heating up, dip sliced bread in the egg wash for about 20 seconds on both sides. Only dip as many slices as you plan on frying. In other words, if your pan can only fry two pieces at a time, be sure to only coat two pieces of bread a time.

Add a little butter to the surface of skillet. This will help prevent the French toast from sticking. I heart butter.

Fry each slice for about 3 minutes per side or until golden brown. Remove from heat and serve.

If you’re interested in making your stuffed French toast a little more glamorous, sprinkle powdered sugar over the tops of the slices and garnish with fresh strawberries and almonds.

Look at how beautiful these babies are! Can you believe how easy that was, yet how fancy this looks by adding a little magic dust (a.k.a. powdered sugar)?

Final thoughts: although I loved this recipe, I would like to suggest a few things. For a whole loaf of bread, you may want to double the amount of cream cheese and jam the original recipe calls for. If you plan on using fresh strawberries for the filling like I did, I recommend using a 1/2 cup of chopped strawberries with 1 tablespoon of sugar mixed in. Also, because I found the stuffed French toast was plenty sweet on its own, I opted not to add maple syrup.

 
Many thanks to manda2177 for this great recipe. It’s now in my regular Sunday morning rotation!

 
Here’s the link to the recipe: Stuffed French Toast from manda2177

 
 
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Alice Currah is the force behind Sweet Savory Life and Everyday Alice. She and her husband Rob are the proud parents of three children: Abbi, Mimi, and Elli. Alice is the winner of Saveur’s Cover Contest and is on the Forbes.com list of Eight of The Very Best Food Bloggers. All we’ll say is that we knew she was a winner way before they did.