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seriously awesome french toast

I recently read the book "A Homemade Life" by Molly Wizenberg.  I forget where I first heard about the book, but checked it out from the library.  She shares lots of recipes and the stories to go along with them. It was a delicious read, so much so that when I found it at the used bookstore I went ahead and added it to my cookbook collection.  The first recipe I've tried is called "Burg's French Toast".  It's very similar to standard french toast recipes with one exception.  I've never seen a french toast recipe that calls for frying the toast in canola oil like this one.  And let me tell you, it is a really yummy way to cook it.  The toast comes out with beautifully crispy edges and a super creamy interior.  Really really good.

If you'd like to read the story behind this recipe, here's the link to her original blog post with the recipe.

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Burg’s French Toast
from "A Homemade Life" by Molly Wizenberg (my additions/changes in italics) 

1 cup whole milk (I used nonfat rice milk and it worked great) 
3 large eggs
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg 

Mild-tasting vegetable oil, such as canola
6-8 slices day-old bread (a bias-cut country French loaf, or challah, preferably), about ¾ to 1 inch thick (I used cinnamon chip bread from Great Harvest.  I think a loaf of Hawaiian Sweet Bread would also work well)
Pure maple syrup, for serving


Break the eggs into a wide, shallow bowl or an 8-in square Pyrex dish.  Whisk the eggs to break up the yolks.  Add the milk, sugar, fanilla, salt, and nutmeg and whisk to blend.

Place a large skillet, preferably cast-iron, over low to medium high heat, and pour in enough oil to completely coat the bottom of teh skillet.  Let the oil heat until you can feel warmth radiating from it when you hold your hand close over the pan.  To test the heat, dip the tip of a finger into the egg mixture (not the oil!) and flick a drop into the oil.  If it sizzles, its ready.

Meanwhile, when the oil is almost hot enough, put 2 to 3 slices of bread into the egg mixture, allowing them to rest for 30 seconds to 1 minute per side (I let mine soak a little longer). They should feel heavy and thoroughly saturated, but they should not be falling apart. Carefully place the slices into the skillet. They should sizzle upon contact, and the oil should bubble lightly around the edges. Watch carefully: with hot oil like this, the slices can burn more quickly than you would think. Cook until the underside of each slice is golden brown,1-2 minutes. Carefully flip and cook until the second side is golden, another 1-2 minutes. Remove to a plate lined with a paper towel, and allow to sit for a minute or two before serving.  

Repeat with the remaining bread. If, at any point, the bread starts to burn before it has a chance to brown nicely, turn the heat back a little. You want to keep it nice and hot, but not smoking.

Serve hot with maple syrup.

Yield: 6-8 slices, serves 2 or 3.

red beet brioche (and french toast too)

For Valentine's Day dinner, I had the great idea of having breakfast for dinner.  I didn't get my bread baked in time, so instead we had pizza last night and made this Red Beet Brioche French Toast for breakfast today instead.  

My inspiration for Red Beet Brioche came from my Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook and the artisanbreadinfive.com blog.  On the blog, they posted about a lovely heart shaped beet bread loaf using the Red Beet Rolls recipe in the book.  This stuck with me and I bought beets so I could do it.  Then the though of red french toast popped in my head.  The problem was that the Red Beet Roll recipe is a savory recipe with onions in it.  So, I decided to adapt it to a brioche recipe and see what happened.  I used the Pumpkin Pie Brioche recipe and substituted beet pureé for the pumpkin and left out all the spices. I had great success and the bread has such a lovely color.  

Red Beet Brioche
adapted from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day

3 cups white whole wheat flour
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
handful or two of flaxseed
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (or 2 packets)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water (use the reserved beet water)
4 large eggs
1/2 cup honey
3/4 cup neutral flavored oil, or unsalted butter, melted (I used olive oil and it worked great)
4-5 red beets, peeled, chopped, boiled and puréed.

 

First, boil the beets until soft. Pureé the beets and then reserve the red tinted water to use in the dough.

Then, mix the flours, flaxseed, yeast and salt in a large bowl or dough bin.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the beet pureé, eggs, water, honey and oil.

Then mix it all together until all the flour is integrated.  Put the top on the dough bucket loosely (or cover the bowl with plastic wrap) and put it in a warm place to let it rise for 2 hours (or until it doubles in size).  At this point, you can pop this in your fridge for up to 5 days.

When you are ready to use the dough, pull off about a grapefruit sized chunk of dough and shape it for your pan of choice.  I used a small bread pan like this:

This photo shows the bread after the second rise.  I used the dough before refrigeration, so it only need about 30 minutes to crest above the top of the pan.  If you are using the dough refrigerated, then let it rise for about 1 hour and 45 minutes, covered loosely with plastic wrap.

Then bake at 350º for 45-50 minutes depending on the size of the loaf.  The loaf is done when it is medium brown and firm.  Remove the loaf from the pan and allow it to cool on a cooling rack.

Now, the french toast part.  I mixed together 2 eggs, about 3/4 cup of milk (I don't usually measure), and a generous splash of vanilla.  Mix it in a flat dish and then put in slices of bread to soak.  Melt butter in a skillet and fry on both sides until golden.

You'll end up with lovely pink and brown french toast.  Which we promptly topped with butter, blueberries and syrup.  Yum!

Enjoy!!

my morning cup

Mmmmm....ever since Denny's sister and I purchased a new espresso/cappucino machine for Denny for Christmas, we've been enjoying lattes at home and saving money by not going to Starbucks all the time. I'm glad I spent a little extra on the Cuisinart machine. I got a great deal at Kohl's and the coffeepot hasn't been used since (and is put away in a cabinet somewhere). :) So, above, is what my morning latte looks like. I am preggers, so I can't have a ton of caffeine. I tend to fill my cup about 1/3 full (using just 1 scoop of espresso ground beans) and fill the rest of the cup with lovely steamed foamy milk. See those little specks of loveliness? Those are my secret ingredient.


My favorite mug was given to me two years ago by my hubby. He wrote all of the funny things Dylan was saying and doing at the time on the mug. Unfortunately, the writing wore off (even though it wasn't supposed to). It's definitely seen better days.


My mug as it used to look on the day it was given to me.

Instead of buying syrup with artificial stuff in it, I had an epiphany. I first attempted my own simple syrup..which turned out delicious, but when I refrigerated it (as the instructions in the recipe said), it crystallized and hardened. Hrumpf. Then, I remembered that I'd purchased some Vanilla Flavored Agave Nectar. I used the rest of that up, and then thought, why not flavor my own Agave Nectar? So, I scraped some vanilla beans into the bottle, threw in the whole beans I had scraped and poured in some plain old Agave Nectar. And voila! I have my own vanilla bean syrup. It works very well in my coffee. And I just keep refilling my bottle as it gets low (I get my Agave Nectar in bulk at Costco). (And for those of you who think I'm a wuss for needing syrup in my coffee...get over yourselves.  ;)  Remember, I'm a southern girl who was raised on sweet tea.  Can't give up my sugar that easily)

There's vanilla beans in my agave nectar!

Blueberry, Chocolate and Orange Buttermilk Scones

I've been seeing lots of scone recipes lately.  There's one in my Forgotten Skills of Cooking cookbook that uses fresh (wild) blueberries.  I saw Buttermilk-Cherry Scones in Mary Jane's Farm Magazine that are baked in a cast iron skillet.  And most recently I spotted a chocolate and orange scone recipe on the Joy the Baker blog.  They all look delish and all a little different.  I decided to use the Mary Jane's Farm recipe and change it up a little bit (also, this was the only one that doesn't call for eggs, and I was out of eggs this morning) by using whole wheat flour and flaxseed and cutting down on the amount of butter.  I love the crust formed on the bottom from baking in the cast iron skillet.  These were melt-in-your mouth tender and the flavor combination was divine.  

I took this photo pre-glaze...the glaze adds a nice shiny top to the scones.

Blueberry, Chocolate and Orange Buttermilk Scones
(adapted from Mary Jane's Farm Magazine)

2 cups white whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

a handful of flaxseed

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

7-8 tablespoons of cold butter, cut into chunks (I used what was left of the stick after buttering my skillet)

3/4 - 1 cup of blueberries

a handful or two of chocolate chips

1-2 T orange zest

1 to 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I ended up using about 1 1/2 cups to make my dough)
Note:  If you don't have buttermilk, you can sour your milk by adding 1 T of white vinegar to 2 cups of milk.  Let it sit for 5 minutes or so until it thickens.  I store this in a mason jar in the fridge for when I need buttermilk. 

Glaze:

1 T heavy cream (you could substitute milk here and just have a less decadent glaze)

1/4 t cinnamon

2 T powdered sugar

 

1. Preheat oven to 400º.  Butter a 12" cast-iron skillet.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the flours, flaxseed, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add the butter and beat with an electric hand mixer until just blended (I cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter until it looked crumbly...no mixer necessary).  Stir in the blueberries, chocolate chips and orange zest.  Gradually add the buttermilk until all the dry ingredients are incorporated and a dough is formed (here is where I needed about a 1/2 cup more buttermilk than what was called for in the original recipe.  I also got messy and used my hands to get all the dry ingredients incorporated).

3. Form a ball with the dough and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Press the dough into an 8" inch circle, about 1/2" - 3/4" thick. Cut the circle into eight wedges.

4. Place the scones 1/2" apart in the prepared skillet (mine were closer together than this and they baked up with no problems).  Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden.

5. While the scones are cooking, whisk together the glaze ingredients.

6. Remove scones from oven and brush on the glaze.  Allow to cool completely (or don't, we didn't and man those warm scones were awesome!  Lovely crust on the bottom and tender on the inside.  Mmmmmm!)

French Custard Toast

I can't believe I don't have a photo of my mom's French Custard Toast to share with you.  All I can say is that it is seriously awesome, and the reason there isn't a photo is because we tend to eat it before we can even think about taking a photo.  

My mom used to make this every year for Christmas breakfast.  We'd usually have to wait for Mema and Grandpa to come over (and sometimes the neighbors) before we could eat any (or open the bulk of our presents).  It's a yummy tradition that I carry on with every year (minus the waiting).  This year, because Denny wasn't feeling well, we postponed our breakfast for a couple of days.  Still yummy, and less time devoted to cooking instead of opening presents.  Yay!

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French Custard Toast

3 eggs, beaten 1 cup milk 1 tsp. vanilla 1 loaf french or italian bread, day old, cut into 1 1/2 inch slices ¼ cup butter (you don't really need this much, just enough to grease your griddle or skillet) ½ cup maple syrup ⅔ to ¾ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (i used a whole bag) Beat eggs slightly in shallow pan or dish; add the milk and salt. Cut diagonally slices of day-old French or Italian bread, about 1 1/2 inches thick. Place bread in egg mixture and soak at least 15 minutes on each side. Heat 1/4 cup of butter in large skillet (or on a griddle). Fry bread slowly, about 5 minutes on each side or until browned. Serve hot with Blueberry Sauce or maple syrup. BLUEBERRY SAUCE Combine syrup and blueberries. If desired, heat before serving.

apple butter

These lovely green apples came from the Farmer's Market.  I spotted them one week but didn't buy them until the next week when I thought about making my own apple butter.  I LOVE apple butter...but most store bought brands use high fructose corn syrup for sweetening...which I try to avoid when I can.  So, I bought a peck of apples...most of them the sour green type you see above.  I also got a few small eating apples thinking Dylan would enjoy them (he did by the way). 

We got the apples home and I gave Dylan one to eat.  He spotted the green apples and said "peeese other apple....geeen apple".  So, I gave him one to hold.  I also had a red delicious apple I put in front of him.  He quite happily talked about the "big apple" and the "tiny apple" and "red apple" and "geen apple" and "tiny geen apple".  Cutie boy.  I took a couple of photos of him with the apples for size reference.

He decided he needed yet another apple, and proceeded to bite into the green apples.  He didn't get very far though....don't know that sour apples are his thing. 

Oh boy, I've digressed far enough from apple butter haven't I?  Okay, back to the main event.  I looked online for recipes for apple butter and found a basic one to help me with proportions.  Then I kinda did my own thing.  It turned out quite delicious and we all enjoy it on our toast.  I even made homemade pop tarts with it....that's my next post.  It's particularly good with the lemon quark (spreadable cheese that tastes like cheesecake) on an english muffin.

Toddler note:  Dylan loves the apple butter (he calls it apple jelly or apple jam usually). 

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Apple Butter

3-4 lbs apples (I used mostly the little green sour apples you see above with a few of the eating apples)
1/2 that amount of sweetener (I used a combination of sugar and honey...about half and half...next time I'm trying agave nectar)
apple juice or cider
water
cinnamon (I didn't measure, but I'd guess 1-2 tablespoons)
nutmeg  (about 1-2 teaspoons)
2 vanilla beans

Wash, peel and cut up your apples.  I read some recipes that recommended slicing them thinly...I cut mine into chunks and it worked just fine.  Put the apples in a large pot and fill about 2/3 with half water and half juice.  You don't want to cover the apples, you want to be a couple of inches below them.  Bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat and cover.  Cook for about 30 minutes, then add the sugar, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla beans and add those as well as the bean itself to the pot. 

Cover and cook, stirring occasionally.  Break up the apples with your spoon as you stir.  I cooked for about 2 hours on the stove, and then moved the mixture to my slow cooker to finish (I needed to leave the house that afternoon).  I put the slow cooker on high and when I came home, the house smelled fantastic.  The apple butter was just the right consistency.  That took about 2-3 hours on high.  You could just as easily leave it to cook on the stove top until it thickens up.  Let cool and store in a container in your fridge.  Enjoy!

raspberry chocolate chip muffins

My next baking experiment from Alton Brown's  I'm Just Here for More Food is his recipe for Old School Muffins.  I fiddled with it a little, like I usually do....by adding half whole wheat flour, flaxseed and wheat germ to the mix.  I also added chocolate chips and raspberries as my extras.  Next time, I'll add more raspberries (I only had a few raspberries to add this time).

Toddler note:  Dylan enjoyed helping me make the muffins.  He especially liked adding in the chocolate chips (he did it very carefully).  He ate about half of one of these and then just played with the rest.

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Old School Muffins
Alton Brown

Dry Goods
All-purpose flour 303g  2 1/4 cups (I used about 1 cup all-purpose, 1 cup whole wheat, and 1/4 cup flax seed and wheat germ)
Baking Powder  7g  2 teaspoons
Baking soda    6g 1 teaspoon
pinch of salt

Wet Goods
Sugar 105g   1/2 cup
Vegetable Oil 1/2 cup
Whole Egg  1 large
Egg yolk  1 large
Plain Yogurt 1 cup

Bits and Pieces, 1 to 2 cups

Preheat oven to 375º.  Put the wet goods into your food processor and pulse a few times.  Whisk together your wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Then combine the two.  Stir just until the ingredients combine, then stir in your bits and pieces. When using fresh fruit toss with the flour mixture before combining.

Prepare your pan by spraying with Baker's Joy.  Fill muffins cups full.  Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Tip the muffins out of the cups to let steam escape (or else your muffins will have soggy bottoms).

luft waffles

So, these waffles may not look all that great, but they were quite tasty.  I've been reading Alton Brown's cookbook I'm Just Here for More Food.  One of my happy cookbook birthday presents. And this book is so much more than just a cookbook.  It's like a baking classroom in a book.  He breaks down everything scientifically (just like he does on his show Good Eats....which we love...our DVR is full of episodes). 

His Luft Waffle recipe is unfortunately not online.  However, I made a few changes anyway (like adding whole wheat flour and flaxseed).  And I found a recipe on the Food Network site that is close to what I did.  These waffles were better than the Everyday Waffle recipe I usually use from the old 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook I have.  Next time I definitely have to try the Chocolate Waffle recipe.  The latter part of my batch (that I froze) turned out crispier because I cooked them longer.  I'll cook them all a little longer next time...the one's I photographed were a bit limp.  I really would like a new waffle maker.

One note:  I tried his Whole Wheat Pancake this past week too.  I didn't like it as much as the recipe I currently work from.  However, I refrigerated the batter and threw some on the griddle this morning and they were quite tasty.

The most useful things I've learned from this book so far is to weight my dry ingredients instead of measuring them and to use my food processor for sifting.

Toddler note:  Dylan loved these topped with blueberries (I use frozen blueberries that I pop in the microwave for a couple of minutes). 

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Basic Waffle
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2005

4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
4 3/4 ounces whole-wheat flour, approximately 1 cup
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 whole eggs, beaten
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
16 ounces buttermilk, room temperature
Vegetable spray, for waffle iron

Preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer's directions.
In a medium bowl whisk together the flours, soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. In another bowl beat together eggs and melted butter, and then add the buttermilk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until combined. Allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Ladle the recommended amount of waffle batter onto the iron according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Close iron top and cook until the waffle is golden on both sides and is easily removed from iron. Serve immediately or keep warm in a 200 degree F oven until ready to serve.