Category Archives: Breakfast

Yeah, that’s a mouthful. But a delicious mouthful. For years I have been sporadically buying cinnamon-raisin bread at the supermarket, just for making French Toast. I would occasionally stuff the French Toast with cream cheese or something else, but I was distracted by a jar of Nutella. If you haven’t heard of Nutella, it’s a hazelnut and chocolate concoction about the consistency of peanut butter, and it’s just delicious.

On to the making of the French Toast –

One egg
1/4C milk
Nutella
Raisin bread
1T butter
Syrup (maple is best, of course)

Preheat a skillet with 1T butter

Beat the egg in a shallow bowl until it’s well beaten. Add the milk and mix well.

Spread Nutella on two pieces of bread, and cover with two more slices, ending up with two Nutella sandwiches on raisin bread. Already a good start.

Dredge the sandwiches in the egg mixture, both sides, and transfer to the skillet.

Cook for about two minutes, until golden brown, then turn and cook the other side to golden brown.

Serve with syrup. More butter optional. A sprinkle of powdered sugar will make it a bit prettier, but doesn’t really do much for the flavor.

Our friend Betsy was coming to stay for the night, so I thought feeding her breakfast would be a nice idea. I was shopping the day before and picked up a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread thinking it would make nice French toast.

Peg mentioned a recipe for baked French toast with Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur in it, and a little bit of searching on the internet provided something like this (original is at tablespoon.com). Quite coincidentally I used Irish butter, which at $3.00 for 8 ounces is both terribly expensive and wonderfully delicious.

• 1 loaf of cinnamon-raisin swirl bread
• 2 C whole milk
• 1/3 C Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur
• 3 large eggs
• 3 T sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 T butter

I used a bit more butter to liberally grease a 9″ ceramic casserole dish, then arranged the bread in layers until the dish was nearly full. You can be as fastidious as you like to fill the dish, but I just rotated each 3-slice stack enough to fit them in nicely.

Mix all the other ingredients except the butter with a whisk until they are very well mixed, and pour the mixture over the prepared bread. Let the mixture soak into the bread for a good 15 minutes, or overnight, refrigerated.

Slice the butter into six or eight pieces, and dab over the surface of the soaked break.

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Bake for 25-35 minutes, until a knife or skewer comes out clean.

Rest it for 10 minutes, slice, and serve with syrup and, dare I say, more butter.

Serves 6 if my Aunt Joann is watching, otherwise serves 4.

Pancakes (contributed by John, adapted from Betty Crocker)

• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1 C milk
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 eff
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t sugar

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add oil, egg, and milk. Whisk together quickly.

Pour 1/2 C of batter onto a hot skillet, cook until bubbles set up, then carefully flip over. Cook for another minute or so until golden brown.

Server warm with butter and syrup.