Ingredients (Salt was an oops)
The first thing you need to do for this recipe is to buy the bread. It works best with day old bread. I have used fresh (bought and prepped same day), but the bread absorbs more if it is a day old. Now when I went to the grocery store on Friday, I got a baguette of french bread FRESH OUT OF THE OVEN. It took all my willpower not to rip into that divine smelling, warm bread. A lot of breads will have the date they were bagged on them, so check because you may be buying one that was bagged the day before. So you would want to use it that night. Once your bread is 'day old' you are ready to start preparing your french toast! Slice bread into even (about an inch to an inch and a half) slices. If they aren't even it's okay. Mine rarely are. You then lay them flat in a buttered 9x13 dish.
Yes those little fingers did steal a piece
All lined up in your dish
Then it's on to the egg mixture. I find it easier to put your brown sugar, nutmeg, and vanilla in the bowl first before the eggs or milk. I give the dry stuff a quick stir, than add the eggs and stir all that up. Then slowly add the milk. For me, I've found that doing it that way makes it mix up a bit more uniformly. I always end up with some brown sugar stuck to the bottom of the bowl no matter how hard I stir or whisk. So don't worry if you do too. Once everything is mixed you pour it over your bread. Flip each piece of bread to make sure it is well coated. Then cover with tinfoil and refrigerate overnight.
How it looks before going in the fridge.
After it's overnight soak.
In the morning, take out your pan, remove the tin foil and let sit while your prepare the rest to let some of the chill off. Melt butter and brown sugar in a saucepan together until butter is fully melted. Top bread with blueberries and drizzle bread and blueberries with your brown sugar butter mixture.
Looks good even with uncooked egg
Pop into preheated oven for about 25 minutes. Now, I usually let cook for the full 25min and then using a spatula smoosh the blueberries a bit to let the juices out. I do this for 2 reasons. The first being, I like having the blueberry smeared every where. The second: It's not fun when a not so hot feeling blueberry bursts molten juice in your or your child's mouth. Really. Not. Fun. In fact it involves lots of crying (yes I am talking about myself). So, I give those babies a quick smoosh and then I pop the whole thing back in the oven for about 5 extra minutes. I like crispier bread and it gives the bread a chance to absorb some of the blueberry juice. Now today because Craig had to work, I didn't do the extra 5 minute cooking and it was still good. Also, the blueberries resisted most of my spatula attack. So we just made sure we popped the one's on Kae's french toast when we cut it up.
Fresh out of the oven (before attacking blueberries)
As I said, there is a good deal of prep for this meal. But the end result is so good. I love that the flavor is so good, you don't need to add anything (like syrup) to it. It's delish all on its own.
Recipe:
1 baguette (day old)
5 eggs
1 1/2c milk
3/4c packed brown sugar (divided)
1tsp vanilla extract
1/2tsp ground nutmeg
4TBS butter (Cut into pieces)
2 Cups blueberries
Butter 9x13 pan.
Cut baguette into 1- 1 1/2 inch slices. Arrange in even layer in pan.
Whisk eggs, milk, 1/2 cup brown sugar, vanilla and nutmeg in bowl and pour evenly over bread.
Turn bread slices to make sure they are coated.
Chill Overnight.
*Next morning*
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Take dish out of pan and let sit for about 20min to take chill off.
Sprinkle blueberries over bread.
Combine butter and 1/4 cup brown sugar in small saucepan, until butter is melted. Drizzle over bread.
Bake 25 minutes or until blueberry juices are bubbling.
Now it's time to watch the Patriots/Redskins game. My two favorite teams, playing each other. It's a win/win! Happy Sunday!
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