If You Can Stomach It

This breakfast was inspired by one I had at the Meli Cafe’ & Juice Bar while in Chicago last week while at a marketing conference (see my Live Blog of the conference). While there, I ordered the Strawberry Banana French Toast with chocolate drizzle. It was pretty amazing to say the least and really rich. I ate it all but could hardly stand the richness of it toward the end. I wanted something a bit more…simple.

Enter Monday morning – Memorial Day – with little else going on. I got inspired to improve on the French Toast I had at Meli Cafe’. My main aim was to make it look really good, have a nice crunchy crust and tone down the richness. Below is the recipe for my Caramelized Cinnamon French Toast with Fruit (added to my Good Eats recipes on the right sidebar). The recipe makes enough for 4 pieces of bread (just perfect for 2 people). If you need more, see my rule of thumb for how to scale each part in italics.

Caramelizing Mix:
rule of thumb: 2 Tbsp. butter and 2 Tbsp. brown sugar per 2 slices of bread
4 Tablespoons butter (very soft)
4 Tablespoons brown sugar

Whisk together the butter and brown sugar.

Custard:
rule of thumb: 2 eggs and ¼ cup milk per 2 slices of bread
4 eggs
½ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Whisk the eggs well and then whisk in the milk, vanilla and cinnamon.

Add a heaping spoon of the caramelizing mix onto a hot skillet and allow to melt. Soak 2 pieces of bread in the custard until well saturated on each side. Place bread onto skillet. Spread some of the caramelizing mix onto the uncooked side of the bread. Once the bottom of the bread is nice and brown – almost ready to burn, flip over and cook until both sides are very well done. The brown sugar and butter will caramelize onto the bread creating a nice crust!

Remove toast from the skillet and top with sliced banana,  your favorite berries (I used blueberries), a dusting of powdered sugar and freshly grated cinnamon. I added a drizzle of pure maple sugar.

By removing the chocolate and whipped cream from the original recipe, I took away a lot of the richness. I suspect the custard the Meli Cafe’ used had plenty of other very sugary ingredients too. Adding the brown sugar and butter added some of that sweetness back, but it also gave the toast a nice crust so it wasn’t so mushy. Plus, the fruit gives you a nice, healthy feeling!