January 27: French Toast Bread Pudding

Today's recipe was from the "brunch and breakfast" section of the cookbook. It only had to cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, so I got up early this morning and prepared it. At about 7am I gathered the ingredients:

 

I mixed up 2 tbsp of brown sugar with 2 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon, and I reserved one tbsp of the mixture:

 

I diagonally cut slices of a loaf of Texas toast in half, then started layering them in the crockpot, sprinkling one tbsp at a time of the cinnamon mixture over top:

 

I did that with all the bread:

 

In a saucepan, I combined 2 cups of cream with 2 cups of half and half and 2 tsp of vanilla and brought it to a boil:

 

While that was coming to a boil, I whisked 1 1/4 cups of sugar into 4 egg yolks:

 

I tempered the egg mixture with 1/4 cup of the boiling cream mixture, whisking constantly:

 

Then I stirred the warmed egg mixture into the cream and heated it for 5 minutes without boiling:

 

Then I stirred in a dash of nutmeg, and poured the mixture over the bread. I sprinkled the reserved brown sugar/cinnamon over top, and set it to cook on high for 1 1/2 hours.

 

The toothpick didn't come out clean in the middle, so we ate some from the sides, and set it to cook a little longer. (We had to eat right away, or we would be late for church.)

 

I scooped it out and served it with a little maple syrup and a dollop of cool whip:

 

This French toast was pure heaven! I took one bite of it, and I almost keeled over in pleasure! It was so good! It really didn't need the syrup because of how sweet it was, but the syrup did give it a nice maply flavor. The prep was a little long, but definitely worth the trouble. I ended up giving the rest to the college students we had over after church as dessert. It's definitely sweet enough to be dessert!