How to Make Stuffed and Crusted French Toast
If you can make a sandwich, you can make stuffed and crusted French toast. In fact, a peanut butter and jam sandwich made into French toast is quite good. And for my eldest grandson Jack – pbj is just about the best snack he can have! We like to play the Flying Cows song for this dish – its quite weird and fun!
To make stuffed French toast, you literally make a sandwich, dip it into your egg batter, and fry it on the griddle. It’s that simple. The magic is in the fillings. You can use a cream cheese filling and fresh fruit. [Blueberry Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast ] All these fillings can also be ordered from Prepared Pantry one of the vendors that I use all the time.
You can use jam. I make my own jam – so there is always a lot to choose from – all organic fruit home grown in our Little Farm, and then with sugar and sometimes vegetable pectin added. Also I love to add the zest of the citrus if it is a citrus jam, and a touch of lemon juice (meyer lemons always). We also use pastry fillings, often Bavarian cream, to make fillings like strawberries and cream.
You cook your stuffed French toast exactly as you do “regular” French toast except that you turn the heat down and cook it longer so that the heat drives through both slices of bread.
When making stuffed and crusted French toast, after dipping your sandwich in egg batter, you dredge it in chopped nuts or coconut. I’m sure there are other things you can dredge your French toast in.
We dredge French toast in a candied toasted coconut topping. The sugar in the coconut melts creating a crunchy coating. We have also made pecan crusted French toast filled with either a cherry or raspberry filling paired with Bavarian cream or cream cheese filling. We simply squeeze some of the fruit filling with some of the cream filling on the bread before sandwiching the two bread slices together. (See all our pastry fillings.) You can make breakfast exciting.
Pecan Crusted French Toast with Cherry Cream Cheese Filling
You can make this stuffed and crusted French toast either with premade pastry fillings or from scratch using cream cheese and jam for your filling. The scratch recipe follows.
Ingredients
- 4 ounces cream cheese (regular or low fat)
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- about 2/3 cup cherry jam
- bread slices
- 3 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
Directions
- Finely chop the pecans. We used a plunger-type nut chopper. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whip the cream cheese, sour cream, and extract. Fold in the jam. Spread the cherry and cream cheese mixture between two slices of bread sandwich-style.
- Whisk the eggs and milk together. Dip the sandwiches in the egg mixture and then dredge the egg-coated sandwiches in the crushed pecans.
- Cook the coated sandwiches on a medium griddle or in a frying pan first on one side and then the other. Serve immediately with the syrup of your choice. Our preference is cherry syrup.
Yield is about four double French toast sandwiches. Yum!