Skillet French Toast Bake

SKILLET FRENCH TOAST BAKE

This is the recipe that isn’t really a recipe but a way to use up old bits of bread and fruit about to turn, or in my case when I had two preschoolers and a toddler running around the farm and our house was littered with partially eaten apples that I wanted to use up. Our farmers market stand used to be right next to a bakery in West Seattle and they would always send Farmer Matt home with bread that they hadn’t sold at the end of the day. So I always had these dense loaves of whole grain and sourdough bread, partially eaten apples, and lots of eggs to use up in the farm kitchen and it gave me the idea to make a one skillet meal that my kids are still in love with. I actually might like this better than actual french toast and it's definitely less hands on if you don’t have much time to make breakfast in the morning.

RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:
4 tablespoons of butter
½ loaf of sourdough bread or other hearty bread cubed
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 small to medium size apples chopped ( I have also made this with pears, rhubarb, blackberries, and plums)
4 large eggs
1 ½ cups of milk
1 tablespoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons of maple syrup

INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

I prefer to make this in a cast iron skillet but any medium size skillet will do.

You start by melting the butter in the pan and adding the bread cubes into the melted butter to start absorbing it and to start the browning process (this is where I think the cast iron skillet really shines giving the buttery bread a really nice texture).

After the bread has started to brown, sprinkle the sugar evenly over the cubes and continue to stir on medium low heat and then add apples to the pan.

While the apples are softening in the pan whisk together all of your remaining ingredients.

Make sure your bread and apples are evenly distributed and then pour the egg and milk mixture over the top of the bread and apples in your pan.

While it's cooking for a couple of minutes on the stove-top you can use a fork to push the bread into the liquid mixture that might be popping up.

You are going to wait for the edges of the egg mixture to start cooking. You’ll notice the egg mixture starting to become opaque and that's when you know it's ready to go in the oven. 

The oven time may vary a bit depending on how much bread you used or how shallow your pan is but usually in my 12 inch cast iron skillet I let it bake for 25-35 minutes.

The key to knowing when it's done is to do a toothpick test at the center to make sure the egg mixture is cooked all the way through.

This reheats well and can be stored in the fridge (not in your cast iron skillet) for several days and reheated.