Recipe: Peaches and Cream French Toast
A Thanksgiving tradition…for the day after…well…I really dropping the ball here.
First: Credit where credit is due: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/peaches-cream-french-toast/
This is the recipe my wife’s late grandfather used. I had this during one of the first holiday functions I was invited to. Things were pretty serious at that point. My would-be wife’s grandfather took a liking to me. He was not the easiest man for one to find his good side. But somehow I charmed or conned it out of him.
It’s very rich and filling and will easily impress a crowd and it’s not that hard to make. I’ll provide the recipe here and my own take on what you should do.
What you’ll need:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 can (29 ounces) sliced peaches, drained
1 loaf (1 pound) day-old bread, cubed (See note below)
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, cubed
12 large eggs
1-1/2 cups half-and-half cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Note: Use a rustic bread, like French or Italian. I use a mixture of Gluten-Free Ciabatta and French Bread. It’s dense and a little tougher than Gluten-Expensive bread so you won’t have to let it sit out in the harsh air of your kitchen for a day before using.
Make your life easier and gather all this stuff ahead of time. The fancy French way of saying this is, Mise en place, which means “putting in place”. So “put” your ingredients “in place” before you start.
Method:
Grease a 2” deep aluminum pan. Use butter. This is a rich dish. Go big or go home. If you don’t want to use butter, use pan-release…butter flavored pan-release.
Put the Brown Sugar, Butter, and Corn Syrup into a sauce pan and melt on a low heat. Mix until the sugar is dissolved, then leave it on the stove to melt some more. In fact, forget about it, then remember, stir it a few more times, then forget about it again. Think about how you bought an entire bottle of corn syrup for this recipe even though you have three bottles of the stuff in your pantry. Corn syrup is funny that way. It never goes bad and we seem to have gallons of it taking up precious pantry real-estate. When the apocalypse happens, we’ll all survive on the stuff. We’ll all be diabetics, but damnit we survived!
While your Apocalypse Syrup is brewing, dice up the bread and your block of Cream Cheese.
I use Philadelphia Cream Cheese. There really isn’t any other kind and if you’re one of those people who thinks there is, well, you’re wrong and I feel sorry for you, for your children and for the untold dozens who may come after you, who will not know the true joy of Philly Cream Cheese.
Back to your syrup. Pour it into the bottom of your greased pan. Let it naturally spread until the surface of your aluminum planet it covered in the brown sugary creep of sweet alien goodness.
Open your peaches and line the bottom of the pan. Be careful of the molten sugar but also be sure to put as many peaches all over the bottom of your pan.
Take half of your bread and place it over the peaches.
Next, take half of your diced cream cheese and disperse it among the bread like Communist Sympathizers in a 1950s era American populous. Their influence will be felt throughout the masses. Viva la Revolution!
Place the remainder of your bread and cream cheese.
In a blender of signification size and girth place your Eggs, Half&Half, Vanilla and blend until mixed and frothy—but not too frothy. If you over-froth you won’t maximize your bread-to-soakage ratio and we all know what happens if you do that!
Pour the mixture evenly over bread, cover in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge overnight.
You’ve done a lot today. Go to bed and dream about how wonderful this will taste in the morning.
But wait! You forgot to set your alarm! Wake up! Set that alarm. Set it to wake to music—to the sweet staccato of, System of a Down. Now go back to bed and get your rest. You’ve got a big dead ahead of you, soldier.
In the Morning remove the plastic wrap—unless setting fires to your kitchen is kinda your thing, then by all means leave it on! Place your sweet, raw goodness in a 350-Degree oven.
Bake for an hour. The top should get gold, the Cream Cheese should do that cooked Cream Cheese thing—yeah, you know what I’m talking about. And the sides should start to pull away from the pan. Check the center with a knife, dagger, or blade of ludicrous size. It should come out clean, or covered in cream cheese, but not egg.
Serve it with a giant spoon!
