I've been wanting to make a stuffed french toast recipe ever since I saw a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives feature at Metro Diner in my homeland of Florida. So finally, this morning I went for it. As this blog goes on, I think you'll learn that I hate the cold. Therefore, unless I can convince J (my live-in boyfriend) to walk to the neighborhood grocery store to pick up ingredients, I tend to just use whatever I have in the kitchen. After all, this was my mom's method to cooking, and after eating her food all those years, I turned out alright.
Anyway, I remembered that on DDD, the restaurant used bananas in their recipe, which we had none of. Staying true to my aversion to the cold (and 2-inches of ice on the sidewalks), I instead created my own version of the stuffed challah french toast based upon what I had in the house. I used reduced fat and Splenda options, so it is lower in calories--but it probably isn't SUPER low calorie because of the challah. I think it turned out pretty well--even J liked it, and he usually prefers savory over sweet breakfast choices.
French Toast Filling:
1 package of reduced fat cream cheese, room temperature
2 tablespoons of Splenda brown sugar
Dash salt
1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries (I used Trader Joes frozen berries with cherries)
French Toast:
Loaf of Challah Bread
3 eggs
Dash Splenda sugar
Dash cinnamon
Dash nutmeg
Light butter, for frying
Berry Compote:
1.5 cups of frozen mixed berries
Half cup of water
3 tablespoons of Splenda brown sugar
1 tb of corn starch mixed with water (to thicken the mixture)
Directions:
In a bowl, I first mixed the cream cheese, brown sugar, and salt together with a fork. After it was blended, I added in the berries and folded them in. I set it aside to defrost the berries.
Then I cut the bread into 2-3 inch wide slices. I then took each of the slices and cut them in half (like you would if you were cutting a sandwich in half). In another bowl, I beat together the eggs, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. I set it aside.
Next, I started the compote by placing the berries and the water into a small pot, on medium heat. Once it was mixed together, I added in the brown sugar and stirred.
As that was cooking, I started to assemble the french toast sandwiches. I made sure to take two slices of challah that were similar in size. Then, I basically made a sandwich by spreading the cream cheese mixture liberally on one of the half slices. After there was enough cream cheese, I put the other half slice on top and pressed lightly to make a sandwich.
After I assembled the sandwiches, I put a pan over medium heat with a little bit of light butter. While that was heating up, I stirred the starch and water mixture into the compote (which by then was bubbling). Then, I took one of my sandwiches and dunked it into the egg mixture, coating it on all sides. After coating it, I put in the pan to fry, turning it on each of the four sides (tops of the sandwiches and each of the sides). *You may have to support it on the smaller sides to prevent it from falling over.
After the sandwich was fully cooked and brown on each of the sides, I put it on a plate, and drizzed some of the compote over the top. Delish! It made 4 "sandwiches." Enjoy!
