Stuffed French Toast

We encountered the best French Toast we've ever had at a place called Sweet E's Cafe in Honolulu. And of course, we had to figure out how to recreate it at home, since we're not going to be able to frequent Sweet E's on the regular.

Shokupan (Japanese milk bread) stuffed with blueberry cream cheese

It starts with the bread

French Toast is often made with a brioche, as it's rich in flavor and dense enough to soak up the custard without falling apart. But honestly, any bread of your choosing can work.

We chose shokupan (Japanese milk bread). Shokupan is known for being a little sweet and dense while also being soft and pillowy (probably due to all of the fats from the whole milk, heavy cream, and butter). We'll share a recipe here eventually, but just know it was baked in a 2-pound Pullman loaf pan and made perfectly rectangular.

Everyone will also tell you to let the bread sit out for a few days and get slightly stale. You can do that. We used it the day after we baked the bread.

For the cream cheese, you can buy a flavored cream cheese of your choice. But we had some berries on the verge of going bad, so we made a compote first, then blended it in with plain cream cheese. There are two key takeaways to the cream cheese:

1. Add some kind of starch (corn or potato) to the mixture; this will thicken the texture and absorb some of the liquid in the cream cheese so that when you are making the French Toast in the hot pan, it doesn't immediately melt and escape everywhere.

2. Freeze the cream cheese. Again, this is so it doesn't immediately melt in the pan. Plus, this will make our stuffing method much easier.

Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast

Prep: 15 minutes

Cook: 20 minutes

Servings: 4

Blueberry Cream Cheese

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces or 1/2 block of plain cream cheese, at room temperature

• 100 grams or 1/2 cup of blue berries (or any fruit)

• 1.5 tbsp honey

• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

• zest of 1/2 lemon

• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 tbsp corn or potato starch

Steps:

1. Bring the berries, honey, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla extract to a boil over medium high heat.

2. Reduce the heat to medium low to bring the mixture to a simmer and cook until the mixture has thickened, about 10 minutes.

3. Remove the pot from the stove and let cool.

4. In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese with the corn starch and berry compote until combined.

5. Spoon out onto plastic wrap and form the cream cheese into a log with the plastic wrap. Tightly twist the ends of the plastic wrap. Place in the freezer until ready to use.

Stuffed French Toast

Ingredients

• 2 eggs

• 1/4 cup of milk

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp allspice

• Freshly grated nutmeg

• Pinch of salt

• 2-inch thick slices of bread

• Frozen cream cheese

• 1 tbsp butter

Steps:

1. Whisk together the eggs, milk, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and salt.

2. Cut a slit into one side of the bread and hollow out the bread, while taking care to not tear through it. Save some of the bread you cut out.

3. Cut slices of the frozen cream cheese and insert into the hollowed-out bread. Close the slit with some of the bread you removed previously.

4. Dip the bread into the egg mixture for a few seconds on both sides.

5. Melt butter in a pan on medium heat. Once the butter is melted, place the bread into the pan and cook until it reaches your desired level of toastiness. Also be sure to toast the edges!

Serve it up

Dust some powdered sugar over top, with some lemon zest for brightness. We believe in serving the syrup separately, on the side, so it doesn't completely absorb into the French Toast. And to emphasize the fruit in the cream cheese, serve some fresh fruit/berries over top.