French Toast Bake

My family has brunch on Conference Sunday at my parents' house. I made this for everyone for Spring Conference and was reminded of it last week and I decided to share.

The meal was a hit with the adults and the kids! It is a cross between French Toast and German Pancakes (some people call them Dutch Babies or something). Note: if you do not like the texture of German Pancakes, you probably wont like this! However, I LOVE French Toast bake now!

***I got the recipe from one of the thousand food blogs I stalk, and I also used the picture from the blog because I lack the ability to take good pictures.

My changes: I did not add the heavy whipping cream or the granulated sugar. The streusel has enough sugar to compensate the sweetness and whipping cream is really not necessary. I also tripled the amount of cinnamon in the streusel because I love me some cinnamon :)

Cinnamon Baked French Toast
Recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman
1 loaf French Bread
8 large eggs
2 cups milk
½ cup heavy whipping cream
¾ cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
Streusel Topping:
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
1. Spray a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Tear or cut French bread into 1 - 2 inch cubes, and evenly place in the pan.
2. Mix together eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Pour evenly over bread. Cover pan with saran wrap and store in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add butter pieces and cut into the mixture using a fork or your hands. Combine until the mixture resembles sand with a few pea sized chunks. Cover and store mixture in the refrigerator.
4. When you’re ready to bake preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle crumb mixture over the top of casserole. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the French toast is set and golden brown. *** Mine was done at 40 mins so make sure to check on it!
5. Serve warm with maple syrup.

Stawberry Banana Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. Flour
1 tsp salt
3 T Sugar
1 3/4 t double acting Baking Powder
1 or 2 slightly beaten whole eggs
3 T melted butter
1 to 1 1/4 c. Milk
1 c. chopped strawberries
1-2 small bananas chopped

I a medium bowl sift flour. Add salt, sugar, and baking powder and resift. In a small bowl beat eggs. add melted butter and milk. Mix the liquid ingredients quickly into the dry ingredients. Chop bananas and strawberries and set aside. Pour 1/2 c. of the mix onto a hot griddle set at med/med low heat greased with butter. Drop desired amount of strawberries and bananas on pancake spaced evenly. Flip pancake when edges are cooked and bubbles have formed in the middle. These taste really good served with Whipped Cream on top! Makes 6-8 medium sized pancakes.

Healthier Banana Cinnamon Muffins

I had a bunch of ripe bananas so I wanted to make a treat with them that wouldn't make me feel too guilty. After searching my recipes, I found a few muffin recipes and decided to combine three of them to make my own twist and left out the butter- yuck! Oh and about 1/3 the sugar the recipes called for, seriously people. 

Danny said he really liked them because they were really moist. I liked them because they were sweet and were not as unhealthy as most muffins. I forgot to take a picture but Danny made me promise to make them again so I will post one then! 

Ingrediants, from what I can remember :

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 T cinnamon (why do all recipes call for less? I want to TASTE it! )

1 Egg

1 T vanilla extract

1 mashed banana

1/8 cup brown sugar

1/8 cup white sugar

1 vanilla pudding cup  

* I used pudding instead of butter and buttermilk and added less sugar. If you don't have pudding, you can definitely use yogurt! I just didn't have any, and I was also wanting a lot of vanilla flavor.

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl. 

3. In another bowl, combine the egg, vanilla, pudding, and banana. 

4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. 

5. Add batter to muffin tin until 2/3 full. Sprinkle a cinnamon sugar blend over the tops of the batter (not too heavy or the muffins wont rise well). 

6. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and a tooth pick comes out clean.