Motorcycle Playground

Various and sundry people over the span of my almost fifty years have tried to domesticate me, make me more “lady-like,” and other nonsense: It did not take. I am a terrible excuse for a homemaker: There are piles of clutter everywhere (mostly motorcycle-related,) I eat out of the freezer and microwave more often than I cook, and I couldn’t tell you the last time I mopped the living room floor (ok, I totally can – it’s never. I have never once mopped it and I’ve lived in this house for 11 months now. To be fair, I do sweep. Occasionally.*)

There’s no moto-content here. I made the grave error of posting a food photo on my Instagram account… without posting a recipe. Truly unforgivable, and this is my penance. I bring you: Blueberry French Toast Breakfast Dessert Casserole.

I found the original recipe on a website that I am reluctantly not linking here because… it’s terrible. The format, ads, size and frequency of photos, auto-play videos with sound, asinine text, gratuitous overuse of exclamation points – all just fricking infuriating and I don’t want to subject you to it. You’re welcome! I also modified the recipe, so meh.

I took only a few photos as I made this, not planning to write about it, so please forgive me for the paucity and bad quality of images.

Ostensibly, this is a French toast thing, but you guys, there is so much going on with this that makes it orders of magnitude more delicious and calorically awful than your basic French toast: However, it tastes every bit as good as you think it should. While I am very sympathetic to dietary restrictions, this is not gluten-free, paleo, keto, or any healthy dietary thing – but you can also adapt this to your own preferences, and I’ll make suggestions as I go. As a vegetarian who previously had a gluten sensitivity, I relate, but I am also LAZY. You are on your own for that stuff.

One of the things that most pisses me off about badly organized online recipe sites (as this one DEFINITELY was) is having to scroll back and forth, up and down, to find measurements and then read instructions, and then verify measurements again, blah blah, so I’m going to try to make this as easy on you as possible. I’m putting measurements up top and in the instructions, I’m using two different expressions of measurements (one of which is not grams: I for heck-danged sure am not spending time weighing stuff in the kitchen,) and I’ll tell you what something should look like as needed.

At least, as far as I know what it should look like, which is not much.

I may also make some snarky remarks about the original site. Sorry for not being sorry.

You will likely want something distinctly Not Sweet to accompany this, and probably not too rich, either: Strong coffee. Not that we need more carbs or cholesterol, but maybe some bacon, over-easy eggs, or hash browns. Or, to be slightly healthier, some kind of nice veggie hash (you’re on your own for that recipe, though.)

Time Required:

About an hour and a half, total.
50-55 minutes baking time.

Servings:

I have no idea. Five? Twelve? I live alone, and I haven’t the faintest idea what “normal” portions even are. It’s a mother-effing 9″ x 13″ pan full of goodness – it’ll go fast. Trust me.

Equipment:

9″ x 13″ baking dish (although I used a slightly smaller, but deeper, dish)
Large saucepan
2 mixing bowls
Mixer
(Oh, and an oven.)
(And a cooktop.)

Ingredients:

For the main dish:

• 16 ounce loaf of day-old French or Italian bread, torn or cut (lol, “cut” – adorable) into 1″-2″ cubes (I used sliced Dave’s Killer Organic Bread 21 Whole Grains & Seeds in a desperate bid to make it slightly healthier, and haphazardly ripped the slices into thirds or so – it worked great.)
• 1.5 (1 1/2) packages cream cheese, softened (I used one, it worked fine.)
• 0.5 (1/2) cup powdered sugar
• 2.25 (2 1/4) cups milk, 0.25 (1/4) cup divided out
• 1 – 4 cups blueberries (or your preferred fruit, or a mix – tear it up!)
• 10 eggs (that’s right – ten; your cardiologist will not be amused.)
• 0.33 (1/3) cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (or to taste)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 0.5 (1/2) teaspoon divided out (or to taste)
• Optionally, and to taste:
  Ground nutmeg, allspice, ginger, cloves (if you have fresh nutmeg and ginger, omfg yum)
  Pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts
  Sliced bananas
  Chia seeds
  Go crazy – add all the things!

For the sauce:

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar (substitute maple syrup, honey, or agave syrup if you prefer, or your favorite other sweetener to taste)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1ish cup fresh blueberries
• Optionally:
  Lemon or orange zest
  … rum? No, no; this is for breakfast. (Ok, maybe a little rum. It’ll cook off.)

Now, I love a good fruit sauce, so I doubled that recipe, myself. Also, the sauce isn’t as sweet as one might expect – because the whole shebang is sweet and rich already.

You can either make this ahead of time and put covered in the fridge overnight, though I’d advise letting it warm up a bit before tossing into the oven, lest the center not fully cook. I am never organized to do anything ahead of time, so I haven’t tried this myself. Good luck. We’re all counting on you.

Prep:

Don your apron so you don’t soil your house dress.

WAIT, WAIT, Wait: This is not the 50’s. We do not often wear house dresses or aprons these days, but we do vote**, wear trousers, ride motorcycles, and so forth.

Begin again.

If you like, place your ingredients into tiny, picturesque, little receptacles like they do on the cooking shows. Do I do that? LOL.

Take your 9″ x 13″ baking dish and generously grease that puppy up however you prefer. I used coconut oil.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fahrenheit – Celsius would be a bit much, no?

Rinse your blueberries, slice your bananas if you’ve got ’em, assemble your equipment, and so forth.

If you haven’t already torn up the bread, do it now, and slap those little guys into the greased dish. You may want them to be orderly, but I just threw them all in and spread evenly.

Method – Actually Doing the Things:

Main Dish

In a large mixing bowl, place the 1 1/2 cups of softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and the divided 1/4 cup milk, and beat well with a mixer. If you don’t have a mixer, despair not – you’re just going to get a little arm workout. The resulting mixture should be creamy and reasonably free of lumps. It’s going to get put on top of things in slap-dash fashion; it need not be perfect. I mean, unless you want it to be, but I truly cannot help with that.

In whatever manner you find pleasing, get the cream cheese gloop onto the bread. Use a spoon, pour it over, have it transported via conveyor belt – whatever you prefer is all good. Just get the cream cheese mixture onto the bread reasonably evenly.

Sprinkle as many blueberries over the top as your little heart desires. I used somewhere between 1.5 and 2 cups.

This is also the time to sprinkle on nuts and other add-ins. Or you can do it at the end. Your call! You do you! Let your freak flag fly!

Some people find Unexpected Nuts in their food upsetting. I put pecans on half, for, like the old candy bar commercials, “sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don’t.”

Now, we move onto the egg mixture. In a mixing bowl, add the 10 eggs, the 2 remaining cups of milk (though the original recipe mysteriously switches to water here, despite it being milk in the ingredient list – fun! Don’t use water – use milk, really,) the 1/3 cup sugar (or syrup, or honey, or agave, et cetera,) the 1 -2 teaspoons of vanilla (I used a tablespoon, because I effing love vanilla,) 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and beat that stuff in the mixer until bruised and bloodied. And well-mixed.

Gently, ever so smoothly, pour the egg mixture over all the other stuff in the dish. Gaze with satisfaction upon your marvelous work. Take a few photos for Instagram, because why not – people have been sharing pictures of their food since our days in the caves – it’s not a modern hassle, it’s our heritage. Participate!

Sprinkle about a half-teaspoon of cinnamon over the top. Or not, as you prefer.

If you’re somehow put-together enough to be making this the night before, cover and transfer to the fridge. Otherwise, soldier on.

Incidentally, this is the point in the recipe where the blogger mentioned preheating the oven. Not at the beginning, no; right when we’re ready to bake. A+.

Cover the baking dish with foil, and ease into the 350-degree oven for 30 minutes.

Go have a relaxing half-hour. If you like, you can make the sauce now, or you can wait until the second baking stage, or you can wait until you take it out of the oven, or you can wait until the cows come home if that’s when you’re going to serve your masterpiece. This is a two-stage bake, no need to watch things like a hawk.

Yet.

After the half hour slips by, remove and recycle the foil, then continue to bake for another 20-30 minutes. Those last minutes are where things get a little weird.

The author does not tell us how to tell when it is done, nope! That’s left as an exercise for the baker. I am not a baker. I am not a “kitchen whiz.” I can barely bake my way out of a pancake. Wait, those aren’t usually baked. You see what I mean.

My beautiful and talented friend, who runs CDKitchen, is a far more experienced kitchen person than I am, so I consulted her (by which I mean, I texted her in near-panic) to see what she thought about this “doneness” thing.

We both agreed that, as a French-toast-based dish, it probably shouldn’t jiggle much, right?

Wrong.

It’s gonna be jiggly. When done, you’ll see bubbling along the edges, and the first inch or two from the edges won’t be jiggling, the cream cheese along the edges may be slightly browned, but the center will be a little loose.

I crouched, gargoyle-like, in front of my oven, shaking it every few seconds (I am not a “patient” person when waiting for things like this) to monitor The Jiggle Situation. As the 30-minute mark approached, the center wasn’t showing much sign of firming up, and I knew (despite the deeper dish) things had to be close to done, because my nose told me they were. Ok.

I wanted an end product that was more custard than cake, and I think I went about 3-4 minutes too far for that: The bottom was browned, the edges were close to being a little on the dry side, but the middle was about perfect. A deeper dish was a mistake, I think, but not a fatal one.

I wish I had some magical advice about poking the casserole with a thing and having it come out cleanly (it won’t unless everything is just entirely effed,) or some algorithm about pan size and oven stability, but I’ve got nothing, man – sorry. You’re entirely on your own here, although I have a small, terrible video showing how much it was jiggling a few minutes before I yanked it out.

At the moment of perfection (or as close to it as you can be,) lift your prize from the oven and place it somewhere to set and cool a bit. If you, like me, cannot resist basking over the glorious heat pouring from the cracked-open oven door, enjoy that for a few minutes, or enjoy whilst you proceed with the sauce.

Let’s do the sauce thing.

The Sauce

On its own, the main dish is pretty extraordinarily good, but the sauce? Oh, mercy, it adds all the right things. Scale this up to your heart’s content.

Place 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar (syrup, honey, agave, et cetera,) to a large sauce pan. Whisk in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.

While stirring either basically constantly, or at least frequently, bring to a slow boil over medium to medium-high heat.

Now, the original author here says to boil hard for almost 5 minutes. After 2 minutes of gentle boiling, I had a gelatinous, goopy concoction that needed zero more thickening. It was the consistency of almost-set pudding (no video of jiggle here, sorry,) which ended up being about perfect.

Add all of the blueberries you like, maybe a little lemon zest, reducing heat to medium low for a nice simmer. We want the berries to soften and burst, adding their mellow sweetness and lovely coloration to the mixture.

Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring as often as you feel is necessary. Me, I stirred it a bunch to break up the berries (see also: Not Patient.)

Taste the sauce (cooling on a spoon, of course, lest you nuke your mouth from orbit,) to decide if it needs anything – more sweet? A little spice? Maybe some rum? Maybe just drink some right out of the bottle after the stress of determining doneness. Just a touch; Mommy needs her medicine.

Service

Now, I’d imagine you could dump the sauce over the whole pan if it’s all going to be eaten fairly quickly, but that’s not my thing. I’d rather portion out the sauce once each serving has been placed into its bowl. This allows for a lovely presentation, as well as letting people determine how much (if any – heresy) sauce they would like.

Garnish with a little zest of lemon or orange, or a leaf of mint or basil, or a splash of balsamic, or, like me, with nothing whatsoever, because I’m only feeding myself and I am not at all particular about whether a garnish is present.

If you fancy some whipped cream, boom! Do it! If you fancy some RUM in your whipped cream – do it!

A little unwhipped heavy cream? Why not!

Sliced bananas!

Chia seeds!

Yogurt!

You see my point – do it up however you like.

The end result is nothing short of amazing, my friends. I just made this yesterday, so I can’t say whether it keeps well but it was damned tasty reheated this morning.

This is so much food, I will be eating it for approximately six weeks. I will also gain 17 pounds.

So, that’s it, that’s all – there ya go, Instagram buddies (geniusjt, coolcow.advr, enduronv, and imericcraig.)

Enjoy, and bon appetite!

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* Semi-annually. Usually.

** Yes, I know; that happened well before the 50’s. It just had the right sound to it. Indulge me.