Baked French Toast

Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal of the day. More than any other meal, I enjoy going out for breakfast the most. Sadly, breakfast food is often heavy, fatty, salty, too sweet or simply too many calories. I am not one to eat at Denny’s but for comparison sake a French Toast Slam has nearly 800 calories and 45 grams of fat! Want to try the cinnamon pancake meal? Try 970 calories and 49 grams of fat. Denny’s isn’t the only culprit. Restaurants that serve breakfast want their food to taste good and often that comes in the form of fat usually butter or bacon grease. Now don’t get me wrong, potatoes cooked in bacon grease are one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures, but everything in moderation is important. So, I have come up with a healthier version of one of my favorite diner foods, baked French toast. It’s a weekend treat that can be made Friday night and just thrown in the oven Saturday morning. Serve with some strawberries and nitrate free (preferably organic) bacon and you got yourself a delicious breakfast treat.

Baked French Toast

Serves 4-6 

 

8 ounces of wheat bread or challah, preferably stale, cut into 2" cubes.

6 whole eggs

3 tbsp light brown sugar

1 cup of 2% milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp cinnamon

Topping:

2 tbsp brown sugar

¼ tsp cinnamon

For serving:

Maple syrup

Powdered sugar

Fresh fruit of your choice

The night before:

Prepare 9x9 baking dish by spraying it with non-stick spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl, crack the eggs. Beat the eggs with a whisk until fluffy. Toss in the brown sugar and whisk again until the mixture lightens in color and the eggs seem to fall off the whisk like a ribbon. Mix in the milk, vanilla extract and cinnamon. Toss in the bread and mix to combine. Put the entire bread mixture into the prepared baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. (If you don’t want to wait, try to give it at least 4 hours, but believe me your patience will be rewarded.)

In the morning:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Mix together brown sugar and cinnamon for topping in a small bowl.

Take the French toast out of the fridge, uncover and sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon mixture over the top evenly.

Place uncovered in the center rack of the oven for about 40-45 min or until the top is golden and the egg mixture is set. Raw eggs are yucky.

Let cool ten minutes before spooning out onto plates. Serve with fresh fruit, nitrate free bacon, maple syrup and powdered sugar, if you’d like. J

This would make an awesome dinner too! Assemble in the morning and pop in the oven for dinner. Yum.

Cooking with Kids

Kids can be picky. They will often not like something just for the sake of not liking it. Often it has nothing to do with the food itself but the fear of the unknown. Getting your kids in the kitchen is a great way to get them involved with their food. Bring your kids to the grocery store; let them pick out one or two vegetables they’d like to try that week or even give them a choice between some of your own favorites. When you get home let them help you put away the food so they understand the full process behind what gets on their dinner plate. Finally, let your kids cook! Get a pair of child safe scissors that are only used for the kitchen. (I would suggest for kids 3 years or older) Let your kids cut romaine or pepper strips for salad; mix up a salad dressing, measure and roll out pizza dough. All children are different but by the time they are about 3 years old they should be able to help with whisking, measuring, mixing, tossing and cutting vegetables with child safe scissors. Let kids wash vegetables and watch as they transform from a giant bunch of kale to a small amount in the pan. Cooking to me is always rewarding, especially with the kids. It is amazing to see their faces when something they helped to create is on the plate to be consumed. 

            

Today E and I decided to make banana bread. Now, it wasn’t the healthiest banana bread. I didn’t go crazy with making too many alternatives for the recipe. I did a couple easy changes and just enjoyed the time baking with my lovely three year old. She smiled the entire time. Baking can also be turned into a math lesson. E helped with the temperature on the oven making sure it was at 3-5-0. We also counted ½ and ¼ cups, eggs and bananas to make sure we were following the recipe. It is always such a fun experience cooking with her and I always want to figure out more ways to get her involved. A couple great books on the subject are Rachael Ray’s “Yum-O! The Family Cookbook” and Ella’s Kitchen’s “The Cookbook: The Red One” and “The Big Baking Book: The Yellow One”. Here is the banana bread recipe we used today inspired by Tyler Florence’s version but made just a little healthier.

Banana Bread

1 cup AP Flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour

2 tbps ground flax seed

2 tbsp wheat germ

1 ½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

4 very ripe bananas (I like to save bananas that are past their prime peeled, in the freezer in a freezer bag)

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup Earth Balance Butter, melted and cooled

¼ cup apple sauce

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup chocolate chips (optional, we didn’t use chocolate chips today since Jared is allergic)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Spray non-stick spray on a light colored 8” cake pan, aluminum is nice. Then cut out a circle of parchment paper to stick on the bottom and spray once more. Be sure to get the sides.

Combine flours, flax, wheat germ, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Mash 2 of the bananas with a fork in a small bowl so they are chunky but not complete mush, set aside.

In a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer beat the remaining two bananas and sugar until well incorporated. About  1 ½ minutes for stand mixer and 3 minutes for hand.

Add in eggs, the cooled butter, apple sauce and vanilla and mix until just incorporated.

Add in the flour mixture slowly so you don’t end up covered in powder, and then add the mashed up bananas.

Do not over mix.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Place it in the middle of the preheated oven for 1 hour or until the sides are coming away from the side of the pan and a toothpick comes out mostly clean. (Look at the toothpick, if it’s mushy delicious banana on there that’s fine, you don’t want to see raw batter.)

Let the cake pan cool about ten minutes before turning out the banana bread. Let cool an additional half hour before serving. I suggest with a cup of tea.

Steps where the kids can help:

Measuring the dry ingredients

Mashing the bananas with a fork

Cracking eggs

Scraping the batter bowl into the cake pan

Enjoying every last bite when it comes out of the oven!

Some resources for cooking with kids: