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Dining in The King’s Kitchen (recipe: Southern Pimento Cheese with Lavash Crackers)

I was floored to find out that, because of your votes, I was not only 1 of only 12 blogs to move on to round 9 of Project Food Blog, but was also Readers’ Choice! FLOORED. Thank you times a million for your amazing support! Challenge #9 was to write a restaurant review. After telling you about my head-on collision with the homelessness epidemic in San Francisco, I heard about The King’s Kitchen and its mission to “feed the hungry and heal the brokenhearted.” Please read my review below and consider supporting me in this round! VOTING IS NOW OPEN! Please sign in to your Foodbuzz.com account (or register if you don’t already have one). Then go to my official entry here and vote by clicking the heart next to the words “Vote for this Entry.” I’d be so grateful for your continued support.

Dorothea sat across from me, a child of God in the kitchen of the King, and wore a sweet grin on her face, though she was recounting times in her life that were anything but happy. She described herself as a character, and you could see by the way she lit up her coworkers’ faces that it was true. She’s worked her way up from dishwasher to prep cook at The King’s Kitchen, a new restaurant in uptown Charlotte, but what she was remembering during our conversation were the times before she had this opportunity — darker days of her life.

“I was wild, a troublemaker,” she said, and “it was a hard struggle to get back. People do make mistakes, and when you want to do what’s right, it’s hard because [jobs] look at your background, not realizing that we all make mistakes.” But The King’s Kitchen, a restaurant that donates 100% of its profits to help feed the hungry and employs workers others might consider “unemployable,” recognized that all she needed was an opportunity.


After my first anonymous visit to the restaurant, I returned to get to know some of its amazing staff. From L to R: Dorothea, Sous Chef Sam Stachon, and my fantastic server, Charity.

When we got up so that I could take a photograph of Dorothea, she pulled Sous Chef Sam Stachon along with her, saying affectionately, “I want a picture with my chef, my chef.” Her words seemed to communicate a particular emotion to me, but I reflected on them all night before finally recognizing what it was: acceptance. The King’s Kitchen is a family, and Dorothea is — as she deserves to be — a beloved member.

* * * *

Restaurants are part of the broader hospitality industry — but what does hospitality mean in the world today? In America? In my city, in my neighborhood, in my heart? Does it mean good food, attentive service, a comfortable seat, a cordial smile? Maybe all of those things, but even more than that, hospitality carries with it a deeper sense of welcome. It’s an opening of one’s space and talents, an expression of love, and a willingness to serve. As Dorothea’s story illustrates, both the staff and the customers have found hospitality in The King’s Kitchen.


The King’s Kitchen

The ninth (!) challenge of Project Food Blog is to write a restaurant review — something that’s never happened on Willow Bird Baking! Especially after listening to the judges talk about exploring the “folklore of the meal,” I felt inspired to resist the traditional tone of restaurant reviews. The point of this blog is not to write to you from an expert standpoint — it’s to talk to you, one home cook to another, and to tell you my stories.

A WBB style restaurant review will tell you, first off, about a place that touched my heart — and I hope you’re already seeing how The King’s Kitchen did just that. Second off, a review here will tell you about my honest, individual experience with the food a restaurant served and the atmosphere they created. Finally, it just wouldn’t be a Willow Bird Baking post without a recipe. Sous Chef Sam Stachon gave me one of my favorite King’s Kitchen recipes to make at home and share with you: Southern Pimento Cheese with Lavash Crackers.

The Food:


One of my favorite dishes: Fried Flounder with Butter Beans, Macaroni and Cheese, and Coleslaw

The King’s Kitchen serves comfort food that amplified, for me, the feeling of hospitality. Every dish became an allusion to something in my past, some memory of home or family. I sampled biscuits, cornbread, one appetizer, three entrées, six side dishes, and two desserts in all. And apart from feeling a little humiliated to have just admitted that on the internet, I had a fantastic experience.

The Fried Flounder, for instance, had a light and flavorful breading and was served with a tangy, house-made tartar sauce with capers. Another entrée, Aunt Beaut’s Fried Chicken, transported me to the Fridays in high school when my dad would bring fried chicken by my summer job as a special lunch. It was juicy, crisp, and nestled next to a bank of corn and perfectly flavored collard greens.


Aunt Beaut’s Fried Chicken with Collard Greens, Macaroni and Cheese, and Corn

The Shrimp and Grits were unexpected. They had a more intense tomato flavor and were lighter than a typical spicy andouille sausage incarnation. As Mike and I ate this dish, I remembered Charleston and cobblestones, buying a bouquet of flowers from a peddler in the night — flowers I still have tucked away somewhere. Mike enjoyed the dish more than I did, but we both agreed that there didn’t seem to be a way to go too wrong when choosing anything on the menu. Everything felt like home.


Shrimp and Grits

Other odds and ends at our table were also impressive. The biscuits were fluffy and make-your-knees-buckle good when slathered with the housemade strawberry jam. The veggie side items were all fresh and perfectly seasoned. And one of my favorites, the pimento cheese on housemade lavash crackers, reminded me of many a fond moment spent devouring pimento cheese from a spoon over my sink — except it was handmade and had a much better flavor than the sort from a plastic tub.


Odds and Ends (from top L, going clockwise): Pimento Cheese and Lavash Crackers, Biscuits with fresh housemade Jam, Butter Beans and Macaroni and Cheese, and Aunt Beaut’s Chicken and Collard Greens

Finally, the dessert options at The King’s Kitchen are exciting and varied. My pet peeve about some restaurant dining is that many a restaurant neglects the dessert menu, offering pedestrian dishes that are meant to appease rather than delight. Dessert is important, y’all, and The King’s Kitchen boasted plenty of it: Banana Pudding with housemade vanilla wafers, Coconut Chess Pie, Deep Dish Apple Pie, Pecan Pie, Chocolate Pie, and Aunt Esther’s Brown Sugar Pound Cake.

Mike and I come from families with legendary banana pudding recipes, so we were a bit biased. We found the Banana Pudding with toasted marshmallow topping a little too sweet and would’ve loved more wafers. The Coconut Chess Pie, however — which was made by Dorothea herself! — was a work of art with a flaky crust and a dense, coconut filling.


Banana Pudding (top row) and Coconut Chess Pie (bottom)

The Atmosphere:

The food was matched by the exceptional, warm service and comfortable atmosphere. Matt, our first server, was always ready with recommendations or a refill of the best fountain soda everrr (side note: hurray for fantastic fountain drinks). When I returned alone to meet some of the staff, Charity was equally attentive and kind.

More than just the servers’ personalities, though, the mission of the restaurant creates its environment. Even as you sit in the beautifully appointed dining room with lovely upholstered booths, a glossy bar, and, now, a shining Christmas tree, there’s a sense that you’re not the center of the universe, but part of a broader community — a web of people who have and have not, people of all races and classes, and people who are necessarily interdependent. In addition to enjoying the nostalgic food, I so appreciated the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than myself.

Pocket-Sized Review:

  • Location: 129 W Trade St #100, Charlotte, NC 28202-5305; on the web; or by phone: (704) 375-1990 ‎
  • Hours: Lunch is served Monday through Friday, 11 am-2:30 pm; Dinner is served Monday through Saturday, 5 pm until
  • Cuisine: Southern soul food (lunch menu; dinner menu)
  • Price Range: Dinner appetizers: $4-13, Dinner sandwiches: $8-13, Dinner entrées: $12-24, Desserts: $7.5
  • Favorite Picks: Aunt Beaut’s Fried Chicken, Collard Greens, Fried Flounder, and Coconut Chess Pie
  • Cool Notes: The King’s Kitchen donates 100% of its profits to feed the homeless, and also employs and trains members of society who others may consider “unemployable.”
  • Dress: Casual
  • Parking: Parking is relatively easy to find. We parked in a lot just behind the restaurant on Trade Street that was $6-7 for evening parking. There are also metered spaces nearby.
  • Overall Willow Bird Baking Rating: 4.5 out of 5 spoons

If you’d like to enjoy a little bit of The King’s Kitchen in your own home, whip up some homemade pimento cheese and lavash crackers. The recipe below is simple and satisfying.

What small choice could you make to show hospitality to someone today?


The King’s Kitchen Pimento Cheese and Lavash Crackers — this time made in my own kitchen!

Southern Pimento Cheese with Lavash Crackers


Recipe by: Adapted from The King’s Kitchen
Yield: about 4 servings of crackers, about 2 cups of pimento cheese

Lavash Cracker Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon butter, melted and cooled
1/3 to 1/2 cup room temperature water
water for misting

Southern Pimento Cheese:
2 cups extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup gouda, shredded
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, diced (I used half pimentos)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions:
Make the lavash crackers: Sprinkle yeast into 1/3 cup room temperature water to dissolve for 5 minutes. It should start to foam a bit. Combine this yeast mixture, flour, salt, honey, and melted butter in a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine into a ball. You can add up to 1/4 cup more water if needed, but add the smallest amount needed.

Flour your counter and knead the dough on the counter for 10 minutes until it has medium firmness, is not tacky at all, and is supple enough to stretch if you pull it. Place the kneaded dough into an oiled bowl, cover it, and place it in a draft-free area for around 90 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spray the counter with cooking spray and transfer the dough onto it. Roll it out until it’s paper thin, stretching the corners periodically, and about 15 x 12 inches, so it’ll fit on a sheet pan. Stop every now and then to allow the gluten to relax if needed. Let it relax for 5 minutes once finished rolling, then transfer it carefully onto a baking sheet. Trim any excess that falls over the side of the pan with scissors.

At this point, you can mist your sheet of dough with water and coat it with sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, cayenne pepper (go easy!), cumin, poppy seeds, or scores of other fun things.

Bake for 13-20 minutes, watching carefully to ensure your crackers don’t burn (full disclosure: I was distracted and some of mine did!), before pulling them out and letting them cool on the pan for 10 minutes. Break them into shards.

Make the pimento cheese: Mix everything together in a bowl. Allow to chill for at least 20 minutes or so for the flavors to meld before serving. Sprinkle with fresh cheddar shreds to serve (and serving on lettuce is a nice touch).


Lavash Crackers with various toppings

P.S. One blog I love is Evangitality, where Kamille charges herself to share the love of Christ (with her family and others) through hospitality. Go see and be inspired!

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Deconstructing a Pizza and a Place

Deconstruction in the culinary world is about division: a familiar dish is broken down into its discrete flavor components, which are served in an unexpected way. It’s about assembly: the separated components meld in each bite, surprising in their newfound unity. It’s about departure: the eater is asked to readjust what they know and what they think they know. It’s about coming home. It’s about the moment when all the flavors suddenly make sense as a recognizable whole — maybe as a dish you’ve had a taste memory of since childhood, but didn’t expect to meet in this new form.

During my parents’ anniversary dinner, I took the classic dishes they’d grown up with and reinterpreted them. Diner pizza became these deconstructed pizza bites, cold and salty, bold and mellow — and surprising in their transformation from discrete bits of flavor to a unified, familiar experience.


View of the Bay Bridge from Alcatraz

San Francisco was also deconstructed for me this past weekend. I attended the Foodbuzz Food Blogger Festival and after a weekend of crowds, taxis, food, lights, friends, laughter, food, cameras, trolleys, hills, and food, I’m sitting alone in Charlotte trying to process the experience.

It’s quiet here — just the sound of airplanes in the sky above my apartment, the road noise beyond the woods, the determined hum of my recently reemployed heater. When I look to the west from this vantage point, pretending my vision reaches the 3,000 miles and 96 hours back in time to my trip, I see fragmented moments: a deconstructed city, a deconstructed experience.

Maybe if I offer these bits of memory to you together — no toothpick to assemble them on, so a blog post will have to do — you’ll taste the flavor of the weekend.


A gull looks toward San Francisco

FLAVOR

Bursting, juicy pork sandwiches with crispy pork skin. Cupcakes like coconut clouds. Adorable quail eggs. Agave-sweetened gazpacho. The burning rush of juice from a garlicky escargot pop. Sultry corn tortillas around shredded beef. A tongueful of flaming mushroom soup. Tart cranberries nestled in goat cheese. Lamb resting peacefully on a bed of butternut. Gruyère tucked inside a fat croissant.


Mini-doughnuts by the bay

ADRENALINE

I presented my Blueberry Stuffed French Toast Bowl recipe to a room filled with sweet, hungry people. Before the demonstration, my shaking hands were trying desperately to set each kitchen utensil and bowl in its rightful place, taking aimless photos, and failing to fasten my apron properly. During the demonstration, I might have been a little silly. Maybe. And after the demonstration — pure joy. What fun! What supportive friends!


Doing my Nature’s Pride demonstration at the Foodbuzz Tasting Pavilion

LAUGHTER

On Saturday night, Foodbuzz hosted a scavenger hunt around the city. I joined a group of relative strangers to romp around San Francisco being silly. I was so exhausted before we began that I wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision — but being a part of Team Tony & the Gold Dust Gals (as we dubbed ourselves) was a highlight of my trip. Here are the tasks we had to complete (photos in this section are by the super-sweet Laura Flowers except the business card photo by my lovely roomie Diana):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZByOPa-X-l0&fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca]1. Dance with a stranger (I totally stepped on his foot).


2. Late night exercise: 10 synchronized jumping jacks.


3. Exchange business cards with 10 people.


4. Photo with the hippest person you can find (the dude in the bowtie, OBVIOUSLY!)

5. Late night toast at the Gold Dust Lounge (I don’t drink, but water works!)


6. Late night snack (of brightly colored, flagrantly artificial drugstore sweets!)

It was beyond absurd scavenging around San Francisco with these wonderful, crazy people. I started out so tired I could barely move, but once we finished our tasks, I didn’t want the night to end.

CRISIS

Even as we were running around San Francisco through bouts of laughter and chatter, something was very wrong. In fact, something had been wrong throughout my trip. On my first night in the city, I walked out to the drugstore to purchase a few supplies. A homeless man stood outside and asked if I would buy him a tuna sandwich and some orange juice – something I happily did. As the weekend stretched on, though, I saw a different man or woman on every corner. Every few feet. In every other doorway.

During the scavenger hunt, we passed a man with no shoes and only a thin sweatshirt sitting in an alcove. He was unable to make eye contact, and seemingly unable to modulate his voice. In a quiet monotone, he was repeating, “Help me — somebody help me.”


San Francisco sunset through the dirty hotel window

I don’t know what to say except that I’m haunted. We have homeless in Charlotte, but I encounter them at a rate that I feel I can manage, and offer them a warm lunch or dinner. In San Francisco, I was overwhelmed. What can I do for this person? And this one? And this one? Each individual deserves a meal, deserves clothing, deserves love, deserves a kindness. But I don’t have the money to provide for them. I prayed as I passed, but was confronted with a scripture from James: “If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”

I’m reading through the article series, Shame of the City from 2003 and still wondering, wondering, wondering: what can I do?


View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz

COMFORT

Despite traumatic moments, Sunday was a balm on my nerves and heart. My beloved college roommate, Martha, drove an hour and a half to spend the day with me. We walked through the sometimes-rain and sometimes-mist in Chinatown, then took a trolley out to the water. We devoured croissants and muffins at Boudin Bakery, home of “mother sponge,” the starter of San Francisco’s famous sourdough.

The sea lions of Fisherman’s Wharf had us in stitches — especially the particularly bulbous ones. I made Martha pose like a tourist in front of random ferries and Ghirardelli square. We rounded off the night with In N Out fries and a crazy drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Staring out at the lights of Sausalito and San Francisco with someone I truly love to pieces was one of my favorite parts of the trip.


Me and Martha

From random bites to random dances, from boisterous sea lions to giant bay bridges, San Francisco was full of magic. I’ll continue to process the experience and break it down into bright bite-size pieces. In the meantime, have a Deconstructed Pizza Bite.

Do you have suggestions for how to get involved in the plight of the homeless? Have you found a way of serving underprivileged citizens? Let me know.

Deconstructed Margherita Pizza Bites


Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking
Yield: about 12 pizza bites

Ingredients:
2 1-inch thick slices of crusty Italian bread, toasted
12 pieces of pepperoni
1 tomato, chopped into cubes
24 mozzarella pearls (or small hunks of mozzarella)
about 4-5 large basil leaves, torn into 3 pieces each

Directions:
On a toothpick, assemble the following: one hunk of bread as your base, a pearl of mozzarella, a hunk of tomato, another pearl of mozzarella, a piece of pepperoni folded into quarters, and finally, a piece of basil leaf. Refrigerate until ready to serve, and serve cold for a fresh, bright flavor.


Sea lions at Fisherman’s Wharf

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Individual Cranberry & Pecan Croissant Bread Puddings

You know those “wreck the dress” photography sessions? A newlywed who probably spent her entire wedding day vigilantly guarding every last inch of white floof on her dress dons her bridal whites again. Only this time, she goes nutso and jumps in a lake or climbs a tree or runs through the rain while a photographer snaps away. Whatever she loses in wedding dress cleanliness, the bride usually gains in some amazing, fun photos.

It’s an exercise in letting go, prioritizing things that really matter, allowing yourself to enjoy something temporary — all of those good things. I still don’t know if I’d be able to do it. I did take baby steps last weekend, though, with a “wreck the croissant” session.

Here’s the thing. When I make homemade croissants, I do not make them just to turn around and use them in other recipes. I do not make them to be shredded (perish the thought), toasted, or drenched with other ingredients. Imagining these things happening to my beautiful, pristine homemade croissants kind of makes me feel like hyperventilating a little.

I make them to EAT. To take pure, unadulterated bites of bliss — maybe with a smidge of butter and honey or jam if I’m feeling adventurous. But this weekend, something happened that changed all that.

Project Food Blog has pushed me out of my comfort zone on several occasions. I’ve been making dishes I’ve never made, hosting fancy dinner parties, and doing wacky phototutorials. I’ve been really pleased with how the competition has enriched Willow Bird Baking rather than detracting from its content — something I had vowed to monitor closely.

This is another one of those times. As much as I’d have loved to put my croissants under a bell jar in my living room to adore (until they disintegrated or got moldy, ew), I wanted to go the extra mile for the competition and show you a few croissant applications. So, with a heavy heart, I set about toasting croissants for Apple, Brie, and Toasted Pecan Panini and (eeek) soaking torn croissant pieces in custard for this bread pudding. I almost got teary. I think you can guess from the panini post, though (and these sweet individual bread puddings are no exception) — it was so worth the pain.

In fact, I would take my freshly baked croissants, shred ’em, and soak ’em again any day for this bread pudding. Each little bowl held a steaming, comforting combination of buttery, rich, creamy, hearty, nutty goodness. The cranberries added a festive flavor. In short, this was the perfect autumn dessert. I ate my whole bowl!

The original recipe was a little too sweet, so I’ve edited the version below to have the perfect amount of sweetness. One thing I particularly love about this “wreck the croissant” recipe is the fact that it makes two perfect-sized servings. You can always double it, but I was happy to make the exact amount I needed.

Happy wrecking!

Individual Cranberry & Pecan Croissant Bread Puddings


Recipe by: Adapted from Jessica Strand’s Cooking for Two: Perfect Meals for Pairs
Yields: 2 4-inch bowls of bread pudding

Ingredients:
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean (or about 2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract)
4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large day-old croissants (preferably homemade! You can use fresh instead of stale if you don’t have time)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease two ovenproof bowls (with 4-inch diameters) with canola oil or cooking spray.

Put the cranberries in a bowl and fill it with hot water. Let them sit for 20 minutes before draining. Toast the pecans: Place nuts in a dry skillet over medium-high heat and stir constantly. Once they begin to toast (when you start to smell them), shake pan to ensure all sides of the nuts are toasted evenly and none of them burn. Pour them out onto a plate and set aside.

Add the heavy cream to a medium saucepan and heat over low heat to a simmer. Add the vanilla bean: slice the bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the liquid; then add the pod (or just add extract). Simmer over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes before removing the vanilla bean pod.

Combine egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk together. Slowly pour in the cream mixture while whisking quickly.

Tear the croissants into 6 pieces each and place in a medium bowl. Cover with the cream and egg mixture and allow the croissants to soak it up for about 10 minutes. Add the cranberries and mix gently. Separate the mixture evenly into prepared bowls and sprinkle toasted pecans over the top of each bowl. Place them on a baking sheet in the oven for 25 minutes or until set. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream, or with nothing at all!

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Homemade Croissant Phototutorial

Croissants are not just pastries to me. They’re not just two days worth of work, careful rolling, and dough laminating. They’re not just butter-laden, flaky bits of heaven.

Croissants represent the mission of Willow Bird Baking: to inspire home cooks to build their kitchen confidence by repeatedly tackling challenging new recipes. In July, I issued the Croissant Challenge where I asked home cooks who had never made homemade croissants before to whip up a batch. Many croissant newbies jumped at the challenge and became Croissant Masters (see their work here: page 1, 2, 3). Their enthusiasm confirmed for me that successfully taking on a challenging recipe can be an exhilarating, satisfying, galvanizing experience.

Thank you so much for voting me through to Project Food Blog Challenge #4 to create a phototutorial. Now it’s time for me to turn the tables on you — because I’m not only completing a challenge, I’m issuing a challenge.

Will you join the proud group to have mastered croissants? No matter your skill level or experience, you can do it, and I’m here to help. If you’re willing to commit to croissant, leave a comment below! Let’s walk through my (slightly ridiculous) version of the process together.










































































Willow Bird Baking is a contestant in Project Food Blog, a contest comprised of a series of 10 challenges to find the next food blog star. Voting for Challenge #4 is now open! To vote for this Croissant Tutorial, register for a Foodbuzz account. Once you’re registered, sign in and go here. To vote, click the heart next to the words “Vote for this Entry.” I am so grateful for your support!


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Blueberry Stuffed French Toast Bowls

This is a two-post kind of day, y’all. You don’t mind, do you?

Good. Because this recipe involves some of my favorite things: French toast, blueberries, and cream cheese. Oh my goodness, I love cream cheese.

Nature’s Pride bread is an official sponsor of the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival this year, and as such, they issued a challenge to Featured Publishers to create a recipe using their products. I want to go to San Francisco as much as anyone, so I decided to give it a go. I pondered and brainstormed and debated and considered until, finally, I decided that I couldn’t think of a creative recipe and I gave up.

What? Don’t look at me like that! I was planning a ginormous dinner party, after all; cut me some slack!

It bothered me, though. When I was picking up supplies for the dinner party, I stuck some marshmallow cream and peanut butter in my basket, thinking perhaps I’d make a chocolate-covered fluffernutter. It still didn’t seem original enough, however, and in the shower this morning before church, I had almost convinced myself to give up again — when it hit me.

I’d already thought of and rejected stuffed French toast because sandwich bread is sliced too thin to cut open and stuff. Someone did it last year with two slices of bread, but I wouldn’t want to replicate something that had been that’d already been done.

Sometime between shampooing and conditioning, I realized that I could bake French toast into sweet little breakfast cups and fill them instead of stuffing them. They’d be topped with fresh berries with some maple syrup on the side for drizzling or dipping. Suddenly, a breakfast star was born.

There were still some obstacles — like how to create the French toast cups. In my first attempt, I dipped the bread into the custard and placed it uncooked into the muffin tin. I can’t really even describe the outcome, but they were something like soggy, bulbous custard balloons. Not San Francisco-worthy.

But my second attempt? Save me a seat on the trolley, because they were amazing! In this version, I cooked my French toast completely before cooling it and baking it into French toast cups. I then filled it with the sweetened cream cheese filling and berries to finish the dish.

Here’s hoping I win a trip to San Francisco to schmooze with some of my food blog faves, and that YOU make some stuffed French Toast Bowls immediately! Mike just polished off the last one for dessert, and if his reaction is any indication, you won’t regret it.

Blueberry Stuffed French Toast Bowls


Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking, with inspiration from Alton Brown
Yield: 8 bowls, or about 4 servings

Ingredients:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons honey, microwaved for 20 seconds (but not while still IN THE BEAR, y’all!)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 slices day-old or stale sandwich bread (I used Nature’s Pride Honey Wheat Bread)
4 tablespoons butter
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
4 tablespoons sugar
blueberries
maple syrup, for serving

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In medium bowl, whisk together the milk, cream, eggs, honey, cinnamon, and salt (this step can be done the night before and refrigerated). When you’re ready to cook your French toast, pour this mixture into a cake pan or pie dish.

Prepare your bread: remove crusts and roll with a rolling pin to slightly flatten. Dip the bread into your custard mixture for about 8-10 seconds on each side before carefully removing it with a spatula to a cooling rack over a sheet pan. Allow excess moisture to drain off of the slices for 1-2 minutes.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat in a skillet. Put 2 slides of bread at a time into the pan to toast gently to golden brown (about 2-3 minutes per side). Remove the French toast to a cooling rack to cool completely. Repeat with all slices of bread.

While French toast cools, make your stuffing mixture by combining cream cheese and sugar into a bowl and mixing until fluffy. (When I tasted this at first, it was grainy, but then the sugar seemed to dissolve. I was going to suggest using confectioners’ sugar instead, but since the graininess was completely gone when we ate it, I don’t think there’s a need). Set aside.

Take each piece of cooled French toast and gently tuck into the well of a greased muffin tin, forming a bowl. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10-12 minutes, watching carefully. Pull them out of the oven and allow the bowls to cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes. Remove them to cool on a cooling rack (the first time I did this, they started to fall apart because I pulled them out of the oven too soon, so I baked them a little longer and they were perfect). Once cool, fill them with the cream cheese mixture, top with berries, and serve with maple syrup for dipping.

Note: As part of Foodbuzz’s Tastemaker program, I received a coupon for a free package of Nature’s Pride Bread. But, um, actually I left it in my mailbox, so I bought this loaf with my own money. So I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Except that I may snag the coupon now and use it for another loaf to make hummus sandwiches. Ahem.

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