Banana-Stuffed French Toast

For this round of the recipe swap, the theme was breakfast. Breakfast opens up a world of possibilities, from sweet to savory, pastry, eggs, etc. The recipe I received was banana-stuffed French toast from Mary Ellen’s Cooking Creations. It’s a quick recipe to put together, and I ended up making breakfast for dinner one night and this was just great.

Now if you read my blog a lot, you may know that I am not the biggest fan of bananas. I like to try new things so I wanted to give this a go. I really don’t like the smell of bananas, so I figured that wouldn’t be too bad here. I recruited my husband to slice the banana, which was a nice help. I also got 6 slices of bread from the loaf. I let the bread soak in the egg for quite a while, and it really soaked it up. I ended up beating 2 more eggs (with some milk and spices) so that there was enough egg for all of the slices.

The first two pieces of French toast got a little burned, so I turned the heat down a bit and it was better. It’s hard to know when such a thick piece of bread will be done cooking, but following the directions Mary Ellen gave it worked out wonderfully. My husband and I really enjoyed this. I liked it quite a lot, and I am glad that I gave it a try. Thanks for the recipe Mary Ellen!

Banana Stuffed French Toast

1 banana
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 loaf of French bread
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon sugar
dash of nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Have a large skillet available, but don’t put it on the heat yet.

Slice the banana into thin slices and mix with the brown sugar. Set aside.

Trim the ends of the French bread and then slice the bread into 1-1/2” slices. Then slice 3/4 of the way through each slice, making a slit for the stuffing.

Whisk eggs with milk, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla. Pour the mixture into a pie plate or other shallow pan.

Take a spoonful of the banana mixture and put it into the slit of each piece of bread. Make sure the bread closes around the stuffing. Dip the stuffed bread in the egg mixture; let the bread sit in egg mixture for about 2 minutes on each side.

Spray the skillet with cooking spray and heat it on medium. Put the bread in the heated pan and cook on each side for 2-3 minutes, until golden brown. (Repeat as necessary to cook all of the pieces of bread.)

Transfer the bread to a baking sheet. Bake for about 5 minutes to cook the bread all the way through. To serve, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Recipe from Mary Ellen’s Cooking Creations