Pumpkin French Toast

How would you like pumpkin pie for breakfast, without actually eating pie? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

My husband and I enjoyed some great meals while we were on vacation. (The extra pounds that I’m carrying now are proof.) After all, on vacation nothing has calories, right? While staying at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, my husband ordered brioche french toast at the Aria Cafe and it was divine. The food blogger in me and the bread maker in my husband immediately think that we to try to replicate this dish this back at home.

As soon as we got home from vacation I told my husband that we must return back to our healthy eating habits. So it totally makes sense that we went in the opposite direction and made a high calorie breakfast instead. 😉

I asked my husband if he knew that brioche was a bread. I admit that as a food blogger I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t know that. As the resident bread expert in our house he knew it was bread, but also didn’t want to make it for the purposes of breakfast. It did however get him thinking.

We come from a part of the world where there are a rather large number of diners. Diners serve breakfast all day (which is awesome). Breakfast at some diners includes French Toast. Some of those French Toast recipes use challah bread. You could almost hear the gears clicking into place in his head. He’d never made challah himself and he wanted to try it. What better ulterior motive for bread could there be than French Toast? Or possibly French Toast’s evil step-sister bread pudding (which is only actually evil because then you end up with bread pudding in the house that you can’t help but want to eat, probably warm, with ice cream… sorry, got distracted there).

Naturally, being autumn (otherwise known as pumpkin everything season) and having already made normal delicious French Toast, it was time to make Pumpkin French Toast. And that is how we got here. French toast that tastes like you’re eating pumpkin pie. Is there any better way to start a Fall morning? I think not.

Pumpkin French Toast Recipe
(About 2 to 3 servings)

Ingredients:

3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup dairy (* See note below)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8-10 slices of Challah Bread

Directions:

Make the Challah bread the day before or buy a loaf. If you don’t have the guts or the time to make the bread yourself, I won’t judge you. Around us you can buy challah in the bakery section of some grocery stores (but not all) and in some diners at the check out area (but not all of them either).
Heat a skillet over medium-low heat.
In a large shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, dairy, pumpkin puree, light brown sugar, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and vanilla extract.
Dunk one bread slice in the mixture, flip the slice of bread over and dunk it again. The batter is a little thicker than normal French Toast batter so you may want to soak the bread a little longer than normal.
Cook the coated bread in the skillet until done on both sides.
Repeat until you are out of the batter, out of bread, or sick of French toast.

* Virtually any dairy will work. I’ve used everything from skim milk to whole milk and heavier dairy including half and half, whipping cream, and heavy cream. I’ve found the higher the fat content in the dairy, the better it comes out. I have not tried non-dairy milk such as soy or almond milk, but I suspect they would also work.

This tastes best if served immediately after making.

Adapted from: two peas & their pod

Rating: