French toast stuffed with love (and cheese)

A few weeks ago, my friend told me about some marscapone cheese-stuffed french toast he ate at a breakfast joint here in Chicago. As a lover of all things cheese, I couldn't get it out of my mind. Thank god that this P-Off C-Off stuffed foods challenge came along!

Not only had I never tasted stuffed french toast, I also lacked a recipe. I ended up creating my own, with some help of recipes found online and Cook's Illustrated recent article about french toast, which provided all sorts of tips, such as how to dry out the bread (oven dried is better than left out) and make the best batter (with egg yolks, whole milk and melted butter).

Anyhoo, here are the ingredients for 6 slices of french toast:

• Bread: Trader Joe's challah bread, cut in 1-inch slices.
• Filling: 1 banana, 8 oz marscapone cheese, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• Soaking liquid: 1 and 1/2 cups warmed whole milk, 3 egg yolks, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1/4 teaspoons salt, 1 tablespoon vanilla

So, the process was pretty simple. I started with the bread. I cut a large slit in bottom of each piece, maintaining about an inch of uncut bread on the top and both sides. Then, I place each piece on a cookie sheet and baked them in a 300 degree oven to dry them out. I cooked them about 8 minutes total, 4 minutes on each side. When they're done, don't bother turning off the oven, you'll need it later.

While the bread was cooking, I made the filling: I just pulsed all of the filling ingredients in my food processor until they were combined.

When the bread had cooled about five minutes, I stuffed each slice full of as much filling as it could handle. Using a butter knife worked well to fill the entire pocket with the cheese mixture. I had about double the amount of filling that I needed, so it could probably be cut in half. (Though I've been slathering the leftover filling on toast all week, and it's been AMAZING.)

Wisk the soaking liquid together, remembering to warm the milk (not too hot) and melt the butter first. Them pour the liquid into a square 8 x 8 baking dish, so you can get nice bread coverage. Bread should just soak for about 20 seconds on each side.

Now, you're ready to cook! Heat butter in a large skillet over medium low heat; when the foaming stops, you can throw on the bread. Cook about 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. The flipping at this point can get sort of delicate because the heated filling gets sort of oozy. Some of the recipes I found online recommended refrigerating the stuffed bread slices for 30-60 minutes, which might've helped avoid any leakage. Nevertheless, I found the leaking minimal as long as I was careful.

When you're done with each slice (I managed to fit two in the pan at a time), you can throw it onto that cookie sheet that's still in the oven. That'll keep it warm until you're ready to eat.

I served the toast with butter and syrup and bacon on the side -- definitely a plus to balance the french toast's sweetness. Honestly, the french toast was amazing. The final result was rich and sweet but not soggy, and the stuffing was creamy with a subtle hint of banana and cinammon. Rave reviews by Husband, who wolfed down three slices. Tres bon!