Best Birthday Breakfast | Stuffed French Toast

This past weekend was my man's birthday, and he deserved an all-star style breakfast. Enter... stuffed french toast! If you aren't salivating enough already, this isn't just ordinary stuffed french toast. What you are about to witness is a recipe for pumpkin french toast stuffed with blackberry caramel mascarpone.

I found this delicious concoction in Bobby Flay's recipe box. I slightly altered a few ingredients I didn't have on hand because they weren't everyday staples for me. I also popped these bad boys into the oven to make sure they cooked through at the end.

Ingredients 

Blackberry-Caramel:

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 12 ounce package fresh blackberries

French Toast:

• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 3/4 cups milk, plus more if needed
• 1/2 cup heavy cream, divided
• 8 slices day old challah, sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups mascarpone, at room temperature

Directions

Blackberry-Caramel:
Smash fresh blackberries with a fork. Heat the cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over high heat and cook, without stirring, until amber brown (about 8 minutes). Slowly whisk in the warm cream, and cook until smooth and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract. Add blackberries to sauce. Let come to room temperature.

French Toast:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt in a large baking dish until smooth. Add the pumpkin puree, ground spices, milk, 1/4 cup of the heavy cream, and whisk until smooth.

Let bread soak in the custard mixture for 2 minutes until the bread is completely soaked through.

While the bread is soaking, heat 3 tablespoons of the butter and 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Cook slices of bread until golden brown on top and bottom, about 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Remove, and place on baking sheet. Repeat process with the butter, oil and remaining 4 pieces of bread.

Place bread in oven for about 8-10 minutes to finish cooking all the way through. 

Combine the mascarpone and remaining 1/4 cup of heavy cream in a bowl, and mix until fluffy and smooth. Fold in a few tablespoons of the blackberry-caramel sauce.

Remove the French toast from the oven to assemble. Top 4 slices of the toast with a large dollop of the blackberry-caramel mascarpone and some of the blackberry sauce. Cover with the remaining 4 pieces of toast and drizzle each with extra sauce.

Now, stop drooling already and go make your own!