Nutella Stuffed French Toast Sandwich

Are you the type of person that likes to eat your french toast with syrup or do you prefer ketchup? I have to admit that even though I don't eat ketchup on anything, I do like it on my french toast. I'll save the syrup for my pancakes or waffles. Unfortunately, french toast is not something I eat all that often and so I have been known to forget that I like the ketchup combo best and instead smother the bread in syrup. Only then does somebody decide to pull out the ketchup and remind me of my mistake.

Well, with this combination you do not need ketchup (it would actually taste pretty awful if you did use it) and you can get away with no syrup (unless you really want a sugar high). Instead, I just add a bit of butter to the top surface to give it a bit of moisture, and it's perfect.

I've never actually made this recipe with the strawberries before and I almost missed my chance this time. I had the sandwich all ready to dip when the basket of berries caught my eye. I quickly disassembled my sandwich and sliced a few berries to add, and I'm so glad I did.

Usually I make this on my griddle or frying pan but today I decided to use the trusty George Foreman Grill which has become sort of an obsession of mine as of late. It worked great because I didn't have to fret about flipping the sandwich to cook the other side. Which usually results in the top and bottom slices of bread detaching from each other due to the nutella thinning out from the heat and becoming slippery, resulting in a lovely mess of goop. Yup, if you have a grill, please use it. Otherwise, I wish you the best of luck and my thoughts are with you...but that shouldn't stop you from trying this though. The goop still tastes fabulous.

On a side note, try drizzle your finished sandwich with the blueberry sauce that can be found here.

I originally found a recipe for Banana Nutella French Toast on the back of a loaf of whole wheat D'Italiano bread. This is essentially the same idea but with strawberries added in. And if you are anti-Nutella or unfortunately can't eat it because it contains milk, I guess you could settle with making this with Peanut Butter.

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 Eggs
2 Tbsp. Milk

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

4 Slices of Bread

1/4 C. Nutella

4 Strawberries
1 Banana

Directions

~Preheat a grill (or a griddle / frying pan).

~Crack eggs into a dish large enough to accommodate for the size of the bread.

~With a fork, gently whisk the eggs, adding in the milk and vanilla as you go.

~Lay out the bread and spread the nutella on each slice.

~Peel the banana and half ways down the length of it, cut it in half. Thinly slice each half lengthways into thin slices (avoid slicing into rounds as they just slide around when the sandwich is heated)

~Wash, de-stem and thinly slice the strawberries.

~Arrange the strawberries and banana on top of two of the slices of bread, then place the other two slices, nutella side down on top (essentially making a peanut butter & banana sandwich, minus the PB)

~Place the sandwich in the egg mixture, and flip to coat each side.

~Cook sandwich until both sides are golden and the egg is no longer runny & raw.

~Serve with a dollop of butter, or a dusting of icing sugar and whip cream.

Enjoy

Banana Soft Serve

Yes, I finally had to try this and I'm really glad I did because it's a dairy-free, vegan friendly, diet worthy ice cream (or yogurt). It was so, so simple. The only problem was I've discovered (and so has my dog) that we actually like frozen banana chunks better than normal banana. When frozen they are so incredibly creamy. Yum. It's amazing we had any left over for the actual 'ice cream'.

Then when I finally got around to putting the frozen chunks in the food processor, I was really glad that I'd read somewhere that it will take quite a bit of time for the bananas to whip. If I hadn't have read that, I may have just given up because all the bananas did for a long time was crumple into course chunks. Eventually though it miraculously (or maybe it was just because the chunks melted slightly) stopped being crumb like and whipped up into this beautiful, fluffy soft serve. You want to know what was even more amazing? It tasted that much better than I had thought it would. I was expecting it to just taste like banana (which it did), but it was more of a lighter taste, like a banana flavoured ice cream would taste like. I'm telling you, it tasted like there were other flavours and ingredients at work here, but there weren't. It's hard to explain.

I've seen this 'recipe' on many, many blogs, so I'm not going to post a link to credit one blog in particular.

Ingredients

Banana

*Optional* 

Chocolate Chips

Nutella

Peanut Butter

Chocolate Sauce

Caramel Sauce

Nuts

Sprinkles

Granola

Fruit / Berries

Directions

~Peel bananas and slice into chunks

~Freeze chunks.

~Process frozen banana in a food processor until a crumb forms then keep processing until banana begins to whip.

~If you wanted any mix-ins, add them and pulse briefly to combine.

Enjoy

Mom's Banana Chocolate Muffins

Growing up my Mom only made one type of muffins. Well that's probably a lie. I'm sure she tried out other recipes, but this was the one she always went back to. Now, even though I've been on a muffin kick for the last several months, I actually haven't tried out this recipe. I thought I'd give it a try though today, because with the heat our bananas are turning quicker than we can eat them.

This recipe was originally a banana loaf recipe and it did not have any chocolate in it. My mom converted it to muffins though, because she found banana bread difficult to get cooked evenly throughout. Some batches, instead of putting in the chocolate she'd throw in blueberries. Now, while I love blueberries, I was never that fond of them in this recipe. I think because it just goes so well with the chocolate. I also have the faintest memory of her using canned peaches in these muffins as well, but she didn't do that all that often.

So the most amazing thing happens when you cook these muffins. They get incredibly crispy on top when you pull them out of the oven, but when you store them in a container they go very moist and soft. Meaning they will turn quite quickly if stored in a warm place. I don't care how full you are when these come out of the oven, you have to have one. Of all the other muffin recipes I've tried, I have never had anything quite like it. The thing is, when baking these, you need to make sure the tops are dark brown. No golden here, you want them to be dark. Be patient, it will happen, and it is so totally worth it. I can't stress this crispy factor enough.

My mom got this recipe from my Aunt Laurel (at least that's what it says on her copy of the recipe.) Where she found the recipe though is a mystery to me, so that's as far as i can take these credits.

Makes: 12 Large Muffins

Ingredients

1 C. Banana, mashed

1 C. White Sugar

1/4 C. Vegetable Oil

1/2 C. Sour Cream (we use either applesauce or soy yogurt instead to make this dairy free)

2 Eggs

1 1/2 C. Flour (I used whole wheat)

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1 C. Chocolate Chips

3/4 C. Milk Chocolate Bar, chunked

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F

~In a medium bowl, combine banana, sugar, oil, sour cream and eggs. Whisk well to combine.

~In a small bowl, combine flour, powder, soda and salt. Stir.

~Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Stir just enough to combine.

~Mix in chocolate.

~Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tins. Fill them just about to the top. (These muffins puff up amazingly and go really crispy on top. You don't want to have not enough batter, because you'll miss out on this if there isn't enough batter to rise above the edge of the tin.)

~Place tins in oven.

~Bake for 18-20 minutes or until dark brown and crispy on top.

~Remove from oven and allow to cool. 

~Store in a sealed container (but make sure to eat a few with the crispy top before you store them away).

Enjoy

Peanut Butter Cup Muffins

Okay, people said these were good. My dog loved me when I was making them because she got to lick the peanut buttery spoons clean. (She's such a good little helper.) I don't actually know what they taste like as I'd much rather eat my Nutella Muffins than these. Plus, I'm not so fond of these muffins for the sole reason that they gave me a horrible time when trying to photograph them. Yup, I don't know what it is about muffins (and breakfast foods and breads) that make them so hard to get a good picture of. Maybe it's that they are all brown and brown isn't the nicest colour. Or even that they are brown and I'm trying to take their picture next to a brown countertop, brown wood board, brown kitchen cupboards, brown walls. I think I've found why I can't get a decent picture. Then again, didn't I say that I don't really care if I have top notch photography (or even mediocre), so I shouldn't be fretting over this. This blog in the end is just for me to document what went right and wrong in the kitchen. Hey, if anyone else wants to read this then that's a bonus.

Yes, this is the same muffin recipe as the one from which I made my Banana Bran Nutella Muffins. In the process of trying to make these muffins dairy free, I think I also created something wonderful. You see, the first time I made these with peanut butter, I threw a couple chocolate chips on top as an after thought because hey, everyone that likes peanut butter seems to love peanut butter cups. Well the verdict quickly came in, they were good but didn't have enough chocolate. So here you have my updated Peanut Butter Cup Muffin Recipe. And yes, they still are pretty healthy (minus the odd chocolate chip or two now in them.)

One thing I did notice is that while you think peanut butter and nutella have a similar consistency, they actually bake up quite differently. With the nutella, I was able to swirl the extra spread on top of each muffin and it just stayed there nicely like I had placed it. The peanut butter on the other hand really melted and oozed over the top of the entire muffin (and looked really horrible and unappetizing). My recommendation: continue to place the nutella on top of the batter, but if you do peanut butter, place the blob of peanut butter on top of the batter and then with a toothpick try to flip the blob upside down so that the entire blob is coated in a bit of muffin batter. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, just push the blob into the depths of the muffin batter. When the peanut butter is encased by the batter it doesn't ooze away and so you bite into a peanut butter surprise.

The original recipe is still from Baking Bites.

Ingredients

Makes 14 Very Large Muffins (or 18 Regular Sized)

1 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour

1 C. Oat Bran (or Quick-Cooking Oatmeal)

2 Tbsp. Cocoa

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

3/4 C. Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 1/4 Tsp. Vanilla

1 C. Mashed Bananas (about 2 1/2 Bananas)

1/3 C. (heaping) Peanut Butter (+ additional for top ~ 1/3 C. extra)

1 C. Buttermilk

1 1/2 C. Chocolate Chips

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F.

~Line muffin tins with liners or grease.

~In a large bowl, combine flour, bran, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt. Stir to combine.

~In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, eggs, banana, nutella and buttermilk until smooth.

~Poor wet mixture into dry, add chocolate chips and stir until just combined.

~Fill each muffin tin.

~Drop 1-2 tsp of the additional peanut butter onto top of each muffin, then either push the peanut butter into the middle of the batter or with a toothpick, flip the peanut butter blob around to get the top surface covered by muffin batter.

~Bake until toothpick comes out clean. Approximately 13-15 minutes for regular sized muffins or 15-17 for large muffins.

~Cool muffins in tin slightly then remove to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Enjoy

Bran Muffins You'll Actually Eat

What do you think when you hear the phrase Bran Muffin? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now, imagine two things 1) banana and 2) nutella. Have I got your attention yet? Oh yeah, and what if I told you next that they're still healthy (no butter and very little oil).

The funny thing about bran muffins is that the one single muffin I remember from my young childhood was Timmy's Oat Bran Date & Orange Muffin. I was probably only 5 or so but I recall that being my go to muffin when everyone went for coffee. I don't know now if I liked that taste of it, or just the name, but it's still pretty ironic that I liked bran as a 5 year old and then wouldn't touch it for many years after. I think it has always been that bran muffins always seem to have nuts or raisins in them, and I'm not found of raisins. Anyway, this recipe has not sign of raisins, or any other stereotypical bran muffin add in for that matter.

Okay, so these are the bran muffins that I most definitely will be adding to my make again muffin collection. They are great. They're moist and wonderful and have a hint of healthiness mixed in with a side of nutella. Unfortunately, nutella has dairy in it and so I halved this recipe (and still got 9 fair sized muffins) and made another type of dairy free muffins for the lactose intolerant among us. Next time, I might make the full batch but split it and add peanut butter to half and nutella to the rest, to save me having to make two batches one after the other. There's nothing worse than having to wash bowls you just used, to then go and dirty them again. The other thing I did for this recipe was I substituted some whole wheat flour for all purpose. Usually I split it and do half and half, but for this recipe I did 1 C. Whole Wheat Flour and 1/2 C. All Purpose. Eventually I'm trying to completely eliminate all purpose flour, but I don't want to make a complete swap right away on a recipe, because of the weight difference between the two flours. I'm also just realizing now as I type this that I swapped out the buttermilk for some vanilla soy milk with a bit of lemon juice added in to make it buttermilk-like. Oops, I guess I'm so used to not cooking with dairy milk, that even when other ingredients aren't dairy free, I still reach for the soy milk. Ha! I didn't even realize I did that until just now, some 4 days after the fact. I won't keep you from this recipe any longer.

Recipe from Baking Bites.

Ingredients

Makes 18 muffins

1 1/2 C. All Purpose Flour (or a combination of whole wheat and all purpose-see above comment)

1 C. Oat Bran or Quick-Cooking Oatmeal

1 Tbsp. Cocoa

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil.

3/4 C. Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1 C. Mashed Banana (about 2 bananas)

6 Tbsp. Nutella

1 C. Buttermilk

additional Nutella for topping

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F.

~Line muffin tins with liners or grease

~In a large bowl, combine flour, bran, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk to combine.

~In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, eggs, banana, nutella and buttermilk until smooth.

~Poor wet mixture into dry, and stir until just combined.

~Fill each muffin tin.

~Drop 1-2 tsp of nutella onto top of each muffin and swirl around with a toothpick (this didn't work so well for me. It really just clumped, but don't worry it ended up looking fine and still tasting good.)

~Bake until toothpick comes out clean from centre of muffin. Approximately 13-15 minutes.

~Cool muffins in tin slightly then remove to cool completely on a rack.

Enjoy

Oh yeah, I'm kind of happy with how these pictures turned out for once.