Mother’s Day Brunch – Strawberry French Toast Cups

Mother’s Day is JUST around the river bend from us!

One of my favorite things to do is take classic recipes and put my own spin on them.  Sometimes it works, other times it’s a MAJOR fail and we end up ordering food or succumbing to sandwich night.

This time…it was a win.  Big Time.

French Toast may be my all time favorite sweet breakfast foods.  (And yes, I do categorize my breakfasts…they are not all created equal!)

Growing up, my mother made sure that our family always had delicious breakfasts and french toast was always one of my favorites.

For this recipe, I took a traditional recipe of ours and tweaked it to reflect my mother’s preference for fresh fruit (particularly strawberries), you can leave them out as well!

Since you’ll be building these in muffin cups, you can tweak it as you see fit for your family and their individual tastes! MMMMMmmmmm Chocolate chips in some, blackberries, plain…yup, going to have to try them all now!

MINI Strawberry French Toast Cups
Makes 6 Muffin Cups worth

3 Slices Bread, chopped into bite size pieces (I used Sara Lee Honey Wheat)

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract (I used Adams Pure Vanilla Extract)

Cinnamon to taste (I used McCormick Ground Cinnamon)

1/4 cup Butter

1/8 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 cup Milk

2 Large Eggs

2 Strawberries, diced 

Blackberries, diced

Pure Maple Syrup (I used Coombs Family Farms Maple Syrup, Organic)

1. Pre-Heat Oven to 350; Butter/Spray Muffin Tin
2. Melt Butter over medium low heat in a sauce pan (or nuke it! We don’t have a microwave…*gasp*)
3. Stir in Brown Sugar to Melted Butter and reserve part of the mixture (we’ll say 1/4…but I’m all about eyeballing)
4. Whisk Milk, Eggs, Cinnamon and Vanilla together (I just shook mine in the mason jar…easy peasy and didn’t dirty a whisk!)
5. Pour/Brush Butter mixture into bottom of each muffin tin cup
6. Place layer of bread onto of the butter mix
7. Add some strawberries or blackberries or whatever topping you wish (going back to those chocolate chips…)
8. Pour the rest of the butter mix over the strawberries
9. Pour half of the milk custard over each cup
10. Add another bread layer.  I tried to cover all of the gaps to really get it to bind together
11. Pour the rest of the custard over the top of the cups
12. Bake for 20 minutes.  I like to keep an eye on it around the 15 minute mark and see if it’s crisping on top. I always pull when it is!
13. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes, using a knife or a flexible rubber spatula- “go around” the edges to release from the tins and flip out your creation!
14. I always like to add a bit more fruit or topping and then drizzle with syrup (a little goes a long way with these since they’re so sweet already!)

Let me know what you think or how you’d change it! I love hearing from you guys!

XXOO
Melissa