STUFFED French Toast

So I've said before that one of Peter's FAVORITE breakfasts is french toast made from a fresh loaf of homemade challah bread. Well, we both had a mid-week day off, so I decided to go big for breakfast on our day off together. I took his favorite french toast and kicked it up a notch... stuffed french toast! Of course I was inspired by all the fresh strawberries in the markets right now :) 

I basically followed my regular french toast recipe, except I added some orange zest as well as I bumped up the eggs and milk a bit since I am using just a few more slices of bread this time.

Recipe: 

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups nonfat milk
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Zest of one Orange, plus a few squeezes of juice from   that zested orange
• Bread (I used 6, half-inch thick slices of sweet homemade challah bread)

Filling: 

• 10-15 Strawberries
• 1 Tbsp. Sugar
• 4 oz. light Cream Cheese or 'Neufchatel' Cheese

The night before, I washed, chopped, and tossed my strawberries with 1 tablespoon of sugar. I covered it with plastic wrap and let that juice overnight in the fridge. In the morning, I very lightly pureed the strawberries with a hand blender (I didn't want it totally pureed because I wanted to get some actual strawberry pieces in our bites of french toast :)

Then, I whipped the light cream cheese for a little bit...

...and added the strawberry puree into the mix (reserve some of the strawberry puree for serving later):

Then, just like in my other french toast recipe, I soaked the bread in the egg mixture, but only for a few seconds on each side because these slices are much thinner and will 'sog' faster and thus fall apart more easily:

As I soak each piece, I lay it on a cookie cooling rack that has been set up over a jelly roll pan to catch any drippings. 

I spread some of the strawberries-n-cream filling on one slice, then top it with another slice.

While the bread is still somewhat soggy, I lightly squeezed around the edges to help seal the filling inside the seams:

I grilled the french toast on my big electric griddle until it had a beautiful golden crisp on the outside of each side:

When all the stuffed-toasts had been grilled 'till golden, I slid them back onto the cooling rack and into a preheated 350 degree F oven for about 5-10 minutes (I didn't really keep track of the time, I just put them in 'till they puffed up and until we were ready to eat). 

This serves multiple purposes: 1) it cooks all that soaked bread all the way into the center, and 2) it keeps them hot until you are ready to eat.

I sliced each piece diagonally so that you could see all the sweet, creamy, pink filling inside the french toast!

Served with some fresh fruit, whipped cream, syrup and some of the strawberry puree.... this is to die for!!!!!

Of course Peter had the double-decker serving! hehe