Mama Loves Cooking - Baking French Toast : French Toast Soufflé

Out of everything I can make, magically, I can't make good regular French Toast. I wanted to figure out a way to make French Toast without making it too eggy. Then I thought about soufflé. What is a soufflé you ask? I picked up Wikipedia's (one of my favorite resources) definition to help define what a soufflé really is:

A soufflé is a light, fluffy, baked cake made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a savory main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb souffler which means "to blow up" or more loosely "puff up" — an apt description of what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.

It's funny to me how hand in hand this soufflé goes with the French Toast. French Toast, when cooked properly, is light and fluffy, yet moist and spongy, like a cake. I was really pleased with how this turned out. I really want to share this with you all this week because I know you will like it FOR SURE!!! ^_^

French Toast Soufflé

• 1 8oz. pack of cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons of butter, softened
• 1 cup of pancake syrup (can be maple, butter, whatever flavor you would like)
• 10-12 slices of bread (You can use Texas toast if you want, but I used Nature's Own Butterbread for softness and it was WONDERFUL!)
• 1 dozen eggs (yeah, that many)
• 2 cup of half & half
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
• Cinnamon (preferably the container with the multiple sprinkle holes)

Optional toppings:

• Strawberries, blueberries, bananas, any kind of fruit you want!
• Powdered sugar
• Syrup

1. Take one piece of bread at a time and cut into 1 1/2 pieces. Leave the crust on.

TIP: Use a pizza roller to cut the bread instead of a knife since it's made to cut fast!

2. Grease (I used shortening) and flour the bottom of your pan. I did not do this and well, luckily I had a good metal spatula to get my French Toast out of the dish. So yes, learn from my mistake: grease and flour the pan.

3. Place the pieces of bread on the bottom of the pan/dish in one even layer.
Now, depending on the size of your casserole dish/baking pan (I used a 9x13.) will determine how many pieces of bread you use. I wound up using roughly 12 pieces of bread.

4. Cover the bread by sprinkling cinnamon on. Don't be afraid to cover it, but don't go crazy either.

5. Line up some more bread pieces on top of the first layer, creating another layer of bread pieces. Cover this layer with cinnamon as well.

6. Take cream cheese and butter and microwave in a safe dish for about 15 seconds. You may need more time depending on the wattage of your microwave. Make sure the butter does not melt.

7. Combine cream cheese, butter, and syrup together using a hand mixer until you get a smooth spread. Mine was a tiny bit lumpy, but that didn't bother me.

8. Spread mixture over the cinnamon bread pieces.

9. Mix eggs, half & half, and vanilla together until the egg mixture is frothy.

10. SLOWLY pour the egg mixture over the bread. Make sure to evenly cover the bread so the mixture can soak in really well.

11. Bake for one hour at 350°. It will be nice a bubbly when it comes out. I let mine cool for about 10 minutes. It also deflated, but before the picture, it was nice a puffy. This is normal for a soufflé.

12. Serve warm with syrup and any other topping you'd like! This was TRULY delicious!!!

ENJOY!