Strawberry Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast

Recently I was contacted my someone at Nasoya, which is one of my favorite makers of tofu and Asian wraps and noddles.  You have seen their noodles on here before, I am sure.  They generously gave me a vegan cookbook called, Spork-Fed, some Nasoya coupons and sweet pair of Tofu U shorts.  They also offered to supply the same for a reader.  I can finally do a give away.  I will have details on that soon.  

The following recipe is from the Spork-Fed cookbook.  I intended to make no changes, but we bought the wrong cream cheese and we could not find some things at our store, so I have made some minor changes.  As a result my recipe is not vegan, but all you would need to do to make it vegan is to use the vegan cream cheese and use brown rice syrup in place of the honey that I used (this assumes that you consider honey to be an animal product and therefore non-vegan) To see the real recipe you need to buy their cookbook or come back here to WIN IT! 

The creators of this recipe and the writers of the cookbook, Jenny Engel and Heather Goldberg, have created this great stuffed french toast.  I have always wanted to do a stuffed French toast, but it always seemed too complicated.  This recipe is so easy that even it's creators bill it so easy to make, even when hung over.  I can attest to this fact.  Not only was I kind of hungover, but I had also flown across country the day before I made this recipe.  In my weird sleepy state of being I managed to misread the amount of spelt flour.  I added 1/4 cup to my recipe instead of the required 3/4 cups.  And the recipe STILL turned out.  Talk about fool-proof!!! I would however recommend that you follow the amount given below and the in the book, don't be a fool like the Veggie mom

Also let me note that I put the milk in almond 'milk' in quotes because almonds don't have teats and therefore almond 'milk' should in my opinion be called almond juice or almond water.  

The Ingredients

The Batter

3/4 cup spelt flour or whole wheat flour

1/4 cup all purpose flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

2 tablespoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 1/2 cups unsweetened vanilla flavored almond 'milk'

grated zest of one lemon

1 tablespoons vegetable oil, and more for the griddle if you need it for your griddle

Strawberry Cream Cheese

8-ounce containers of vegan or light cream cheese (I used light)

4-5 strawberries, diced

2 tablespoons brown rice syrup or honey 

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

dash of lemon juice

Misc Ingredients

8-10 strawberries, sliced

1 large loaf of french bread

Tools

2 large mixing bowls

griddle

The Cooking

For the batter, in a large mixing bowl combine with a whisk the flours, baking powder, sea salt, cinnamon, and allpsice

To the flour mixture add the maple syrup, vanilla extract, almond extract, almond 'milk', lemon zest and oil.  Set aside until the stuffed bread is ready to be dipped into the batter. Take this time to begin preheating your griddle.  I had mine on the highest setting, but you may wish to consult your griddles instruction manual. 

For the filling, in another large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese and the dice strawberries.  

Then add the brown rice syrup(or honey), cinnamon, vanilla extract and a dash of lemon juice.  Set the filling aside and slice the French bread into 2-inch slices and cut into each slice a horizontal opening to form a pocket.  

Stuff each piece of bread with some of the filling and some sliced strawberries.  

Dipped the stuffed French bread into the batter

Your batter will be thicker.  Mine is thin because I am a fool 

Place the batter dipped stuffed French bread onto the prepared hot griddle.  Cook for 3 minutes, flip and cook for another 3 minutes.  Let toast cool 3 minutes for slicing.  Slice diagonally for maximum beauty.  

Serve with the extra strawberries and a dusting of powdered sugar to be extra fancy

Recipe source, Spork-Fed