How better to celebrate peach season than to douse some in booze, butter and brown sugar and pour them on top of French toast? Stuffing the French toast with cheese, that’s how! We use chevre but there are a number of other cheeses which would work for different tastes. Double cream brie and mascarpone both come to mind.
Choose a whole loaf of bread, so that you can control slice-thickness. This is where you have to know your bakery: it needs to have a reasonably regular crumb which is not too airy. It should perhaps be a day old, but not especially stale, or it will turn straight to mush. A baguette is a poor choice; batard or an Italian style of bread is more likely to work well for this recipe. If there are large bubbles in the bread, the cheese will simply melt right out of them. When you make the cheese-pucks, consider the size and shape of the bread, in order to end up with pucks which will fit into slits into the sides of the slices.
When sauteing the peaches and deglazing them with bourbon (or your preferred booze with peaches), do not strive to light the alcohol on fire. Personally, I like them as boozy as I can get them to be, but just cook a little bit longer if you want to ensure all the alcohol has evaporated.
Our Pain Perdu (Cajun french toast) recipe:
Makes enough for 2-4 people.
Equipment:
• baking or casserole dish for egg-soak
• mixing bowl or large measuring cup
• two non-stick skillets
• plate lined with paper towel
• optional microplane grater for whole spices
Ingredients:
French toast:
1 ea loaf of bread
1 cup milk
2 ea eggs
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
8-12 ea frozen chevre pucks roughly 50g total
Peach Topping:
1-2 ea fresh, ripe, local peaches sectioned, possibly cut to chunks
2-4 Tbsp butter
1-2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp Bourbon or Cognac
1/8 tsp cinnamon optional
Procedure:
1. At least 2 hours before, preferably the night before, form the cheese into little pucks, which will later be stuffed into a pocket made from a somewhat-thick slice from the loaf.
2. Arrange the cheese pucks on parchment or plastic wrap on a metal tray and place in the freezer. Once they are set, they may be transferred to another container, and kept in the freezer until needed.
3. To make the French toast, combine the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a mixing bowl to make the egg-soak.
4. Slice the bread about an inch, maybe an inch-and-a-half thick. Before slicing off each new slice, make a cut in the top of the loaf parallel to the slice, and stick the end of the knife in to create a pocket inside the slice of bread. Doing this while the bread is still attached to the loaf helps to stabilize the bread while you work.
5. Arrange the slices into the casserole and pour the egg-soak mixture over them.
6. Let them stand 1-2 min then flip them. Do not let them oversoak; they need to be pliable but not dissolving.
7. While the bread soaks, make a skillet ready over medium heat with butter and oil.
8. Once the bread is ready, stuff each slice with a puck of cheese from the freezer as it goes into the pan.
9. Do not crowd the pan.
10. Cook the stuffed French toast 3-4 minutes per side, to get the egg mixture cooked and to allow the cheese to warm and melt.
11. The toast should hopefully be looking done about the same time the cheese starts to peek out; at that time, transfer each piece to paper towel.
12. In the other skillet, warm more butter and add the brown sugar, making sure to break it up well.
13. Add the peaches and saute briefly.
14. Add a breath of spices to the peaches if desired.
15. Deglaze the peaches with liquor and allow the sauce to reduce as much as desired.
16. Arrange the French toast slices on a number of plates.
17. Pour the peach mixture over the French toast and serve.
Music: