B is for Breakfast

I made some buttercream frosting last night. The recipe called for a bunch of orange zest. Now that we are a single-income family, I have become acutely aware of food waste. Those two little zestless oranges were weighing on my conscience all night.

I’ve never been good at using leftovers. Lying in bed last night, thinking about those oranges, I also guiltily remembered the stale loaf of sourdough bread we never even opened, and the half-pint-minus-two-tablespoons of heavy cream in the fridge, also left over from the buttercream recipe.

Then it clicked. Eggs? Check. Butter? Check. Cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar? Check, check, and check.

French toast.

Then I remembered a crucial piece of information: I am terrible at pan frying. Horrendous. Any french toast I attempt to make will leave me frustrated and teary and my husband hungry and disappointed.

So I decided to bake it, sort of like a french toast/bread pudding hybrid. I call it French Pudding.

This stuff is incredible! The hubs and I ate nearly the whole thing. The pudding itself is not very sweet, which is good because a generous pour of maple syrup over the top is the perfect final touch. I worried whether the use of sourdough bread would result in a tangy pudding, but it didn’t. In fact, the extra-thick crust of the bread softened a bit with the liquid, but still retained its chewiness. This dish has a lot of textures going on--the chewy crust of the bread, the crunchy cinnamon and sugar topping, the warm, eggy custard center--that work together brilliantly.

I added the slivered almonds at the end as sort of an afterthought, but their addition made me think that almond extract might be pretty good instead of the vanilla extract. And the orange juice didn’t add much of a noticeable flavor, so the addition of some zest to the liquid ingredients could be good. Maybe next time...

Here is my recipe, adapted from a recipe for French Toast Casserole. I think I will be working on this one and tweaking it as I go.


French Pudding

4 cups stale bread cubes
4 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray an 8” x 8” pan with nonstick spray. Add the bread cubes to the pan. Combine the eggs, cream, orange juice, vanilla, two tablespoons of sugar, and salt in a separate bowl, then pour over the bread. Let the mixture stand for about ten minutes. In a separate bowl, combine the cinnamon, remaining sugar, and almonds; sprinkle over the top of the bread mixture. Bake for 45 minutes or until the top is brown and crunchy. Serve warm with maple syrup.