This is the perfect brunch food that you can make in advance and it feeds a lot of people. I love brunch food! I first came across this idea at Nothing To It!, a great cooking school in Reno that I worked at for awhile in college. This place was sooo much fun. I lightened this version up with some non-fat half-n-half and egg substitute. I also added some canned pumpkin and extra spices to warm it up!
Pumpkin Crème Brulee French Toast
Yield: 8-10 servings (but probably even more)
Ingredients
- 1 quart vanilla non-fat half-n-half (the original called for heavy cream!)
- 1 1/4 cups egg substitute
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 rounds of Hawaiian Sweet bread, sliced
- 5 slices whole wheat bread (I didn’t have enough of the sweet bread and had to use some of this)
- butter and brown sugar for caramelizing on top
Mix the first 9 ingredients in a large bowl. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan and place 1/2 the bread slices in the pan like a jigsaw puzzle filling in all the gaps. Pour half of the custard mixture on top. Place the remaining bread slices in the pan (with the whole wheat in the middle) and top with the rest of the custard mixture. It will look pretty wet, but it will get absorbed when it sits. Cover and place in the fridge for 4 hours up to overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Let custard sit at room temperature for 30 minutes and then bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, until slightly golden and no longer liquid in the middle.
Cut into your favorite shapes and place on a foil lined cookie sheet. I like an offset diamond shape. Put a little bit of melted butter on top, sprinkle with brown sugar and broil until the sugar browns slightly (Alternatively, you could sauté them). As it cools, the sugar will harden and get crispy like crème brulee. I like to serve mine with Greek yogurt for dipping, honey for drizzling and cinnamon for sprinkling. You could also mix a little pumpkin into the Greek Yogurt. Yum!
This dish is pretty filling, although it didn’t weigh me down and it definitely hit the spot after a long bike ride!
All together now . . . Since I had that fruit parfait earlier, I went easy on the fruit, but still had to have some of course! Added an egg in the background for some extra protein and fat. I just love egg yolk!
