Blackberry French Toast Bake (dairy free)

The place I got this recipe from called it bread pudding and stated they served it for dessert. I wanted french toast however and the recipe looked no different than what ingredients would go into an overnight french toast casserole, so it became breakfast.

We had a surplus of blackberry-like berries and so I had a day of figuring out ways to use them up. This was the first method of the day and it turned out pretty great. I did increase the fruit and decrease the sugar content however. I was expecting to need to put some butter or maple syrup over the top of it, but it was absolutely unnecessary. The only problem was because it needed to be dairy free, I had to use soy milk/almond milk instead of cream / half and half. It wasn't a big deal, but there was just a little bit extra liquid that sat in the bottom because it wasn't as thick of a custard. With the leftovers we just scooped the bread out of the excess moisture, put it in a container and microwaved it the next day and it was great. Not soggy at all.

If you don't want to go dairy free / low fat, check out the original recipe at A Spicy Perspective. Otherwise, just substitute any milk / cream product to a total of five cups. So skim milk, coconut milk, whole milk, whatever works for you.

After eating this, I got to thinking and as great as this was, I tend to have a surplus of sweet breakfast recipes in my arsenal, simply because while I love bacon and fried potatoes, etc. I hate eggs. Omelettes, bennies, scrambled, I can't do it if it's an egg dish. French toast on the other hand, while it has eggs, it is baked into bread, so is more liked a baked good and there is no resemblance to egginess.

So this thinking resulted in me thinking up what I'm going to do next with this recipe. Savoury bread pudding! Some green peppers, onions, mushrooms, maybe some ham or bacon crumbled in and omit the vanilla / cinnamon / nutmeg and replace it with some italian seasonings or poultry seasonings. The poultry would make it very much like my Mom's stuffing however. So we'll see how it goes.

A couple of hints with this recipe though, the recipe I found called for good quality, bakery bread. This was a spur of the moment thing though and I only had two half loaves of sandwich bread in the freezer and it worked just fine. It was even good that it was frozen, because the fluffiness can make it hard to cube, and cutting it frozen worked great.

Also, as for the sugar, I'm thinking it might be good to divide the sugar up and do 1 C. white, 3/4 C. brown or some combo like that. Just to try it out for next time.

Final also...while this may fit in a 9x13 baking dish, I have a bigger casserole dish that I used. It's not as long or wide as it's kind of oval shaped, but it's deeper and it worked well for this. I don't know the exact volume of it, but I just use it when I'm concerned that something might puff up in a 9x13 and spill out.

Serves 8

Ingredients

1 lb Bread, 1 inch cubes

1 1/2 C. Blackberries

1 Nectarine, cubed

1 C. Blueberries

5 C. Milk (see note above. I used 4 C. Almond milk, 1 C. Fat Free Vanilla Soy Milk)

8 Eggs

1 3/4 C. Sugar

1 Tbsp. Vanilla

1 Tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp. Nutmeg

1/4 Tsp. Salt

Directions

~Preheat oven to 350 F

~Place bread, fruit and berries into baking dish and toss to evenly distribute

~Combine the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl and whisk until frothy.

~Pour mixture over bread and fruit

~Bake for 1 hr, 15 min. Centre may still look moist, but not soggy

~Let stand for 10 min.

Enjoy

Peach Cobbler

This is a Paula Deen Recipe that is absolutely amazing. In our household, we've always made crisps or crumbles. That's all we've ever known. Throw the fruit in the pan and top with some sugar and oats. That sort of thing. The odd time I'd comment that I wanted to make a cobbler and my Mom would whip out so and so's blackberry cobbler recipe. Fruit on the bottom, biscuit like dumplings on the top. Then one day things changed...

I wanted a cobbler. Something different you know. I made a couple attempts at finding a really good cobbler recipe, but nothing really seemed to be out there. A couple of times I combined a couple and came up with my own doughy topping, but it never was what I was looking for.

The whole time this was happening I kept finding these really odd recipes that were calling for a lot of butter to be melted in the bottom of a pan. Batter added next. Followed by fruit on top. How was this supposed to work? I dismissed them every time. To me this just didn't seem possible. How would you get a perfect layer of fruit on the bottom, when you put it on the top?

Finally one recipe convinced me it might be possible (plus logic that heavier things sink helped out), but the recipes all seemed to look like you had fruit on the bottom (dry, ungooey fruit) and a cake (dry again) on the top. Not what I wanted. So again I passed over these recipes.

Until I decided to trust Paula Deen's recipe. Because if she can't make a good cobbler, I don't know who could. And it was magical. Why did every recipe I found fail to mention that the cakieness on the top is anything but dry? As it moves up through the gooey peaches it gets all these amazing flavours. Then once it arrives at the top it has just the right sugar and butter amounts to caramelize and have an almost candy like coating over the top. All the while, the fruit on the bottom is so syrupy and delicious.

Verdict: Delicious. Amazing. So worth it. When can I make it again?

I didn't have enough peaches on hand (or so I thought). I wanted to double this recipe (wasn't necessary, it puffed up A LOT and almost overflowed the dish). So I used half peaches, half rhubarb (also because I had a lot of rhubarb to get rid of). So I just subbed out half of the peaches for rhubarb. Easy peasy. What I didn't expect to happen was for the rhubarb to completely vanish, and the peaches to stay whole. Of all things. If you were to hold a piece of peach and a piece of rhubarb in your hand, it would seem like a no brainer to say that the peach would dissolve and vanish during cooking. It is just so juicy and soft and moist, whereas the rhubarb is so hard. But that is not what happened. So my fruit layer was very much a white gooey syrup with a few peaches throughout. I can't wait to try this with all peaches though. Can't wait.

Ingredients

4 C. Peaches, peeled and sliced

2 C. Sugar, divided

1/2 C. Water

1/2 C. Butter

1 1/2 C. Self Rising Flour  (make own: 1 1/2 C. Flour, 1 Tbsp. Baking Powder, 3/4 Tsp. Salt)

1 1/2 C. Milk

*Optional* Ground cinnamon (for sprinkling)

Directions

~Preheat oven to 350 F

~In a saucepan, combine peaches, 1 C. of the sugar and water and bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Stirring often.

~Meanwhile, place butter in a 9x13 pan and place in oven until melted

~In a large bowl, combine remaining 1 C. sugar, flour and milk. Mix until clumps are gone.

~Pour flour mixture over melted butter (DON'T STIR).

~Place fruit on top (DON'T STIR)

~Pour syrup (from fruit) gently overtop (DON'T STIR)

~Sprinkle with cinnamon (I don't think this is absolutely crucial. Up to you. The topping has so much flavour already.)

~Bake for 30-45 minutes (I can't remember what my exact time was) until top is dark golden and crispy.

Enjoy

Peach Streusel Muffins

So, I really love these muffins. I guess I should add an 'also' to the end of that sentence, because if you go back to the early days of this blog you'll see that I kinda have a muffin obsession. But this one is a different sort of love. It's not a chocolate love like in my Banana Chocolate Chip muffins, or a lemon love like in my Lemon Macaroon muffins, or even a nutella love like in my Nutella Bran muffins. No, this recipe is a versatility love and it also feeds the perfectionist in me because they always seem to work, whatever you throw at them (or in them). For example, I substituted out the required two cups peaches called for and instead added in two cups worth of any of these combinations:

~Cherry Blueberry

~Pear

~Carrot Blueberry

~Cherry

~Apple Nutmeg

The possibilities really are endless. I know my favourites were the peach (the original recipe called for peach), the apple nutmeg (tasted like a great apple pie), and the carrot blueberry. Isn't this just amazing? I mean, how many fruit muffins can you make into a carrot muffin by just throwing in carrot and having it work? I definitely am incredibly grateful I came across this recipe. And the fact that it has a streusel on top just makes it even better.

One thing I would recommend is that you use paper muffin liners for this recipe. Due to the amount of fruit and moisture in the batter (and then the crispy and hard topping), it is very very difficult to get these muffins out of the tins in one piece. And by very hard I mean impossible. Let me put it this way, you've been warned. Other than that I have yet to find anything you can really do wrong with this recipe. One other small hint though for aesthetic purposes is if you want the muffins to not be slightly sunken in the middle, make sure you have covered the entire top surface of the batter before baking with the streusel mix. Other than that it's smooth sailing. Oh, and if you are using canned peaches, it is rather difficult to check when they are fully baked. Simply because the peaches are so moist and abundant in this recipe and when you stick your toothpick in it often comes out wet. A word to the rise, these are really resilient to over baking (the top just seems to get better, and there is so much moisture in the batter), that you are better to leave it in for a couple more minutes than you think.

Recipe adapted from Best Health Magazine.

Makes 12 muffins (if making smaller muffins and thus more muffins, you'll have to increase the amount of streusel topping or you won't be able to cover each muffin completely).

Ingredients

Muffins

1 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 C. Finely Chopped Pecans (omitted)

2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

1 Tsp. Lemon Zest

1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 Tsp. Salt

1 Egg

1 C. Sugar

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1/4 C. Butter, melted

1/2 C. Buttermilk

2 C. Peaches, diced (I've only ever used canned due to the season, but originally calls for fresh)

Streusel
1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour
2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp. White Sugar
1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
Pinch of Salt
1/4 C. Toasted Pecans, roughly chopped (omitted)
1/4 C. Butter, melted

Directions

~Preheat oven to 400 F

Muffins

~In a medium bowl, combine flour, pecans, baking powder, soda, zest, cinnamon and salt, and set aside.

~In a large bowl, combine the egg and sugar and whisk until well combined. 

~Add in vanilla, butter, and buttermilk and whisk to combine

~Fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, making sure not to over mix.

~Fold the peaches into batter.

~Spoon batter into lined muffin tins.

Streusel

~In a small bowl, combine all ingredients and mix with a fork (or fingers) until you get a chunky (evenly moistened) mixture.

~Spoon mixture onto muffin batter

~Bake at 400 F for 5 minutes then lower temperature to 375 F (without opening oven door) and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. If muffins are browning too much on top and are still soft inside, lower the temperature to 350 F and bake until the gooeyness is gone in the centre).

Christmas Trifle

This isn't like any other trifle out there, and because of that, I don't particularly like any other trifle out there. This one has no alcohol in it (so it's kid friendly for your Christmas Dessert), and it does not use custard. Honestly, it's probably one of my favourite things in the world which may surprise some because it has no chocolate (or lemon) in it. But, just to prove my last statement, I want to support it with some evidence. Every Boxing Day, my mom and I pull out the leftovers and that's our breakfast. Healthy, well maybe not, as my dad likes to point out every time we do this. But really, considering what we just ate on Christmas morning (cinnamon buns, french toast, bacon and sausages), I think we're cutting back and making good healthy decisions, because hello, there's actually fruit in this!

As good as this is though, I've never even considered making it any other time of the year. It is Christmas Dinner Dessert, that's all! Only problem was this year, my Mom suggested maybe we didn't need it. Of course we didn't need it, but did we want it? Yes! What was I supposed to eat for breakfast the next day if we didn't have it.

About a week ago the radio station that I listen to was asking people if they shared their recipes. I was actually surprised with the feedback they received. Most people replied with a blunt No Way! I guess I'm thankful and very appreciative of the blogging world for doing what they do then. If I was to be like those people and not give out that special family recipe, this would probably be one of them, but alas, I'm not like them so I'll share it with you guys.

This to me will always be my mom's recipe, but she actually got it from a girl she used to work with who would bring it in for the staff.

Serves 15-18

Ingredients

1 Angel Food Cake (box mix, homemade or from the grocery store, it doesn't matter)
2 (102g) Pkg. Instant Vanilla Pudding

4 C. Milk

2 C. Heavy Cream 

1/2 Tsp. Vanilla

2 Tsp. Icing Sugar

2-3 C. Raspberries (frozen work better as they melt and contribute their juices)

7-8 Kiwi, sliced

1-2 Bananas, sliced

Directions

~Make (or buy your angel food cake) and allow enough time for it to cool completely

~In a large bowl, combine pudding mixes and milk and whisk until thickened

~In bowl of mixer, combine the cream, vanilla and sugar and whip on highest speed until cream is whipped (first time for me using my KA to do this, wow it's fast and amazing)

~In a very large bowl (I use a big chip bowl) place bite sized angel food cake chunks until you get an even layer that covers the bottom of the bowl. As you layer, make sure you are leaving yourself enough of each ingredient for the next layer as well.

~Scoop the pudding overtop the cake and spread out.

~Top with whipped cream and spread.

~Scatter the sliced kiwi, banana and raspberries (you want to put all of your banana in this layer because it will be protected from the air and so it won't brown like it would if it was on top).

~Repeat layers: cake, pudding, whipped cream.

~Smooth the whipped cream out nicely as this is the top of your trifle.

~Adorne with the remaining fruit in a decorative design (or just throw it on if that suits you better).

If you had enough ingredients and a deep enough bowl, you could go for three layers, but I never have the room for that.

Enjoy

Rhubarb Plum Crisp

Well, I've pulled approximately 315 plums off our tree (yes I counted...don't judge) and that equalled 9 crisps & cobblers. By the end I stopped using a recipe or even measuring ingredients for that matter. It became a free-for-all, for real. I also stopped writing my recipes down (because there really was no recipe to write), and I stopped taking pictures, because trust me, even if you sub out brown sugar for white sugar or put in less oatmeal or even none at all, each crisp hardly looks any different. So no picture for this post. If you want to see basically what it looks like, scroll down to my last post. The only thing I would say is that after all this, I think I've learned that I like my fruit desserts either as a full blown crisp (loaded with oatmeal) or as a biscuit style cobbler. I'm not as big of a fan of the toppings that are more doughy (such as this one). That's not saying that this one is bad though, it's just that after making 9 crisps, I'm allowed to be judgemental and a little picky because I've tried it all (or so it feels). But I do love this filling from this recipe. I feel like the orange really rounds out the flavour a lot better than the lemon of this one ever did.

Topping recipe is loosely based off of two of my mom's crisp recipes, while the filling is my own creation.

Ingredients

Filling:

4 1/2 C. Plums
4 C. Rhubarb, (I used frozen, even fresh, you'll have to increase the amount of juice added and likely decrease the amount of cornstarch as well.)
1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
6 Tbsp. Brown Sugar (or 1/4 + 1/8 C.)
2 Tbsp. Cornstarch (+ additional 1 Tsp. if too liquidy)
1 Tbsp. Orange Juice (+ additional if too thick)

Topping:
3/4 C. White Sugar
1 C. Flour
1/2 C. Oats
1/4 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 C. Butter

Directions

~Wash and slice rhubarb into bite size chunks.
~Wash and cut plums.
~Combine rhubarb, cinnamon, and sugar in a pot. Heat until it bubbles and the rhubarb begins to soften. Add the cornstarch and orange juice. If too thick add more juice, if too runny add more cornstarch. If you're using frozen rhubarb, there will be a lot of liquid seeping out as it cooks.
~Add plums and stir until everything is combined
~Pour mixture into greased 9x13 baking dish
~In another bowl, combine the first 4 topping ingredients. Toss to combine.
~Add in the butter and with fingers cut into the flour mixture until it is a course crumb.
~Pour evenly over fruit.
~Bake at 375 F for 40-45 minutes or until fruit is bubbly. (Or freeze before baking and bake later).

Enjoy

Prune Plum Crisp

83 plums cut up later and my next few posts are going to consist of just that. Plums. Everybody left me and went away on holidays and I'm stuck with a plum tree that is finally producing plums that all decide they want to ripen on the same day. Yeah, not good.

The Topping comes from a combination of a few of my mom's crisp recipes, while the filling recipe is my own creation.

Ingredients

Filling:
8 C. Plums
1/2 C. White Sugar
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
3 Tbsp. Flour

Topping:
1 C. Flour
1 C. Quick Cooking Oats
Zest of 1 lemon
3/4 C. Brown Sugar
1/4 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 C. Butter

Directions

~Wash and slice plums.
~Place plums in a greased 9x13 baking dish.
~Sprinkle with the sugar, flour and juice and gently toss to evenly coat
~In a separate dish, combine the first 5 topping ingredients. Toss gently to combine.
~Add the butter and with your hands crumble together until you getting a crumbly mixture.
~Spread topping evenly over fruit.
~Bake at 375 F for 40-45 minutes or until fruit is bubbling. (Or freeze it first and bake it later as I did.)

Enjoy

Rhubarb Peach Cobbler - Fruit on the Bottom

I had rhubarb, lots of rhubarb. Actually correction, I still have lots of rhubarb. I also had a handful of overripe peaches that were on their way to the garbage, unless I could think of something to do with them. Now, usually my family is more into crisps. You know with the oatmeal crumb topping and such. Well, I wanted to try something different, so I decided I was going to make a cobbler. The only problem, when I went out searching for a recipe, I found that for some strange reason most people like to make peach rhubarb cobblers with fruit on the top. What?? Sorry, but I was not wanting a cake with fruit on top. I wanted something that apparently didn't exist in anyones recipe books. The other option was that if you didn't want a cake, you could do something funky and melt your butter and pour it over the fruit...I don't know, I read at least four different recipes like this and still have no idea what they were getting at. All I knew was that I wanted a topping that you had to cut the butter into (so not a cake).

I finally found a recipe, but unfortunately the dough called for a lot of yogurt and I didn't have anything to substitute for this, so I kept looking. Finally, I had to settle and make the fruit portion from one recipe, and a biscuit topping from somewhere else. Now about these biscuits. They are good, I mean not what I was expecting, or going for, but still good nevertheless. Because I used some whole wheat flour instead of all white, they had a really good grainy taste to them, but they still tasted like a good scone. Plus, they were super easy to throw together. So, while I originally had in mind more of a dumpling like creation, I am very happy with how this turned out.

The original recipe that I used for the fruit portion called for canned peaches. Now that seems a bit silly to me. The whole purpose of making a crisp or cobbler is because you have all this fresh fruit around that needs to be used up (at least that's why I make them.) So why would you be opening a can of fruit? To make it even worse, they say it has to be peaches in syrup, because you need to use the syrup in the recipe. Well, I was having none of that, so I cut up my fresh peaches and decided that I had to find a substitute. I ended up using orange juice instead. But the original recipe never said how much syrup you would use, so I just added a bit at a time and came up with the magic number of 1/2 C.

Biscuit recipe from food.com. Fruit recipe from recipes.com.

Ingredients

Yields: 9 x 13 pan 

Topping:

2 C. Flour (I used 1 C. white and 1 C. whole wheat and it added a nice flavour)

4 Tsp Baking Powder

3 Tbsp. Sugar

1 Pinch of Salt

1/2 C. Butter

2/3 C. Milk

1 Egg

Fruit:

1/2 C. Sugar

2 Tbsp. Cornstarch

3/4 Tsp. Cinnamon

1/8 Tsp. Salt

3 1/2 C. Peaches

3 1/2 C. Rhubarb

1/2 C. Orange Juice (+ 1/8 C. additional if required)

1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla

Directions

Topping:

~Mix together the dry ingredients.

~Cut in the butter until mixture is crumbly.

~In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk and pour into butter mixture.

~Stir until just combined.

~Set aside.

Fruit:

~Clean rhubarb and cut into bite size slices.

~Slice peaches into chunks.

~Preheat oven to 350 F

~Place rhubarb, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and orange juice in a large pot.

~Bring mixture to a boil, stirring continuously as to prevent it from burning. If it looks too dry, add the additional 1/8 C. of OJ.

~When rhubarb has softened and mixture has thickened, add peaches and vanilla. Stir.

~Pour mixture into an un-greased 9 x 13 pan.

~Place pan in oven and heat for 5 minutes.

~Remove dish from oven and place dollops of dough on top of fruit.

~Return dish to oven and bake until biscuits begin to brown and fruit is bubbling. Approximately 12-15 minutes.

Enjoy