Inspiration
In case you didn’t know, I’m from Hong Kong. Let me ask you a question: What food immediately came to your mind when talking about Hong Kong food? Egg tarts? Fish balls? Do you know we have our own version of “French Toast”? The Hong Kong style French Toast is in fact a thick slice of white bread, covered in batter consisting mainly of egg and butter. It’s then deep fried in a pool of oil and served with more butter and golden syrup. This kind of “French toast” used to be my favorite food when I was a kid. My favorite french toast variation is the one stuffed with peanut butter. Sounds good right?
My Twist on Hong Kong Style French Toast
That peanut butter stuffed french toast is my major inspiration of this recipe – Stuffed Nut Butter & Jam French Toast. Please note that I do not create this recipe to imitate or recreate the Hong Kong style french toast. After years of eating mostly plant-based whole foods, I no longer crave for unhealthy deep-fried food. So what I’m doing here is to make a twist to my BEST FRENCH TOAST recipe. So you may be wondering, “why do you create another blog post for this recipe? Isn’t it just stuffing the bread and then making french toast just like before?” That’s what I thought. My first attempt on this stuffed French toast turned out to be ok. It’s not too bad, totally edible. But since I used a thicker slice of bread, the interior seems to be a bit dry and I didn’t get that melty nut butter action going on.
In order to make it all fluffy and moist in the interior, while having a crispy crust of this stuffed French toast. To achieve this, I covered the pan and used the smallest heat setting on the stove. And it turned out to be AMAZING! Covering the pan allows the bread to be slightly “steamed”. Hence, the nut butter will become melty and the inside of the toast will be fluffy and moist. But then there is an issue, covering it for too long will make the bread lose the crispiness on the outside, which nobody wants. So I tried a few times on the duration of covering the pan and I finally nailed the perfect time!
What Type Of Bread To Use?
I tried using different kinds of bread for this recipe. I might be a bit biased, but the best result is achieved by using my super soft sourdough vegan milk bread (both original or matcha chocolate one)😜. If you can get your hands on vegan brioche bread, it will go well in this recipe as well. Ok, without further ado, I am super excited to share my recipe with you today on this Stuffed Nut Butter & Jam French Toast 🙌💃
Variations
I stuffed my French toast with brazil nut butter and strawberry jam, because who doesn’t like a decent PBJ (or BBJ in this case) French toast?😎But as you know, I always encourage my readers to make twists and customising the recipe according to their own preference. Just use any nut butter and jam of your choice! Or you can also stuff it with vegan cream cheese, banana and chocolate. 😋 That’s why I love cooking, creativity is endless here! 💛
Serving Suggestion
For this recipe, I like to serve them with more vegan butter, maple butter (I made my own but you can buy here) and fresh fruits, especially berries 🙌 Moreover, this batter recipe makes more than enough for 2-3 servings. So if you are only making it for yourself, you can simply keep the batter in the fridge for up to a week. By doing so, you will be able to have French toast anytime of the week as you wish. 😋🍞 Simply dunk your bread in the batter and pan fry it according to this recipe. And there you go! A scrumptious and heavenly vegan french toast for breakfast 🙆♀️
Nut Butter & Jam Stuffed French Toast (Vegan)
Course: Main, DessertCuisine: FrenchDifficulty: Medium4
servings30
minutes40
minutesIngredients
1 thick slice of bread (about 4 cm thick)
1.5 Tbsp nut butter (here I used brazil nut butter)
1 Tbsp strawberry jam (you can use any kind of jam you like)
- French Toast Batter
85g firm tofu
1/2 cup plant-based milk
1 Tbsp sugar (I used coconut sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract (or more if you like it more vanilla-y)
Pinch of allspice (optional but highly recommended)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp vegan butter (I used Miyoko’s cultured vegan butter)
Directions
- Blend the French Toast batter ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth.
- Pour the batter into a flat shallow dish
- Now, cut and make the bread into a pocket in order to stuff the nut butter and jam. The way to do it is to insert a sharp knife into the center of the top crust of the bread slice. Slowly work your way into the bread, until it reaches 1 towards to other end of the bread. Be careful not to break the bread by cutting into the sides.
- Squeeze the bread gently and carefully spoon the nut butter into the pocket. Followed by strawberry jam. Use a knife to spread the mixture to ensure that they are evenly distributed.
- Preheat a non-stick pan to medium heat. Then, turn the heat to low.
- Gently dip the bread to the batter for 5 seconds on each side. Allow any excess batter to drip off. Also, make sure the sides of the bread are covered with batter.
- Add 1 Tbsp vegan butter to the pan.
- Place the dipped bread on the pan, cover it and leave it for 5 minutes. Flip, cover the pan and then continue to fry the toast for another 3 minutes.
- Remove the cover and leave the toast for another 2-3 minutes until the side touching the pan is crispy.
- Flip again and fry the other side for additional 2-3 minutes. Check to see if it’s crispy and golden brown. If not, continue for another 1 minute.
Notes
- If you have some leftover batter left, you can keep it in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- Unlike other french toast recipes, you have to use the lowest heat here. Otherwise the toast will burn on the outside and dry inside.
