blueberry-lemon cream cheese french toast.
a crispy-top french toast bake filled with gooey sugared cream cheese, sweet bursted blueberries, and bright, zesty lemon.
Makes: 6 servings Prep time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 90 minutes jump to recipe.
At the time of writing this, it’s about to be Mother’s Day — and since I’m not going home this year I’m deep in the feels. It’s like missing Christmas. Something just.. doesn’t feel right.
In thinking about my mom, my mind went towards her holiday brunches. For as long as I can remember (so, not very long) she’s made a big casserole of french toast on Christmas Eve, which gets put in the oven before opening presents the following day. By the time we’ve all ripped through the wrapping paper under the tree, the bake is ready to eat. Soft on the inside, crispy on the outside. Delicious.
I riffed on her holiday french toast bake here, adding blueberries and lemon zest for a spring version. And here’s the real twist: the inside is filled with gooey, melty cream cheese. Uh, hell yeah. I’ll add cream cheese to anything (and regret it later).
As with dairy, I also don’t eat a lot of bread, so this isn’t my perfect breakfast; but this isn’t about me. This is for the brunch aficionado who loves soft french toast, blueberry bundts, and cream cheese frosted cinnamon rolls. It’s all of those amazingly bread-y things rolled into one.
And it’s not terribly unhealthy, either. There’s a lot of eggs, quite a bit of butter, but not a ton of sugar. That being said, it’s not very sweet - save that for the maple syrup. You can always add a few spoonfuls of sugar to the custard if you’d like this to be sweeter, but remember that there’s already sugar in the cream cheese… and fresh blueberries all over.
I know we all love treating our moms to a boozy restaurant brunch, but if that’s not in the cards this year, give this french toast bake a try. You’ll just need some bread (preferably very stale), cream cheese, blueberries, and a ton of eggs. And if you really want to impress mom, make it the night before and pop it in the oven early the next morning, so she wakes up to the sugary smell of baking blueberries.
blueberry-lemon cream cheese french toast ingredients
bread: You can pretty much use 16 ounces of whatever bread you have on hand, but there’s a few kinds I’d recommend. I almost always use challah bread, which is light and fluffy and perfect for french toast. This time I used slider rolls from the bakery section, which I’d bought for a different recipe and never used. They were sitting in my fridge for 2 weeks, which made them perfectly dense and stale for baking. Crusty italian bread also works great, as does a sturdy french baguette. Anything a little crusty that you can “knock” on. And if you can let it stale in the fridge or on the counter for a few days before using, perfect. You can also bake it for a few minutes to dry it out if you’re short on time!
cream cheese: Grab a brick of cream cheese and let it sit at room temp all day. If it gets soft enough, you’ll only need a spatula to beat it into a sugared cream. Otherwise, use a hand mixer.
sugar: to sweeten the cream cheese; this basically makes it into a frosting rather than just plain old cheese. If you skip this, the french toast will be especially not-sweet.
vanilla: Gives a little more flavor to the cream cheese and the custard. Again, skipping it would just make it a little more bland.
blueberries: You could actually use frozen here, it doesn’t really matter. The blueberries will likely thaw by the time you put the bake in the oven anyways. I used fresh, but depending where you live or what season it is, you might be better off with frozen. I find they tend to be sweeter!
lemon zest: You actually won’t be using lemon juice at all, only the zest. It adds just a little bit of lemony flavor. Zest about half a lemon for the filling, and the other half for the top.
eggs: Sorry, it’s french toast, so you’ll need nearly a whole carton of eggs. My mom’s recipe calls for 12 eggs, I used a little less because of the cream cheese. If you’re hating me for making you use all your eggs for this, try to think of it this way: this serves 6 people. It’s barely over 1 egg per person.
milk: I actually used oat milk for this recipe and it turned out fine. My mom uses cow milk and I didn’t notice a huge difference in the texture (actually I forgot I even used oat milk). I wouldn’t recommend almond or soy, I’ve never had success substituting these for cow milk. They are just too different in density.
heavy cream: this adds some more creamy density to the custard. I didn’t use very much compared to other recipes, including my moms, because of the cream cheese.
butter: Here’s where a lot of that rich flavor comes from: a whole stick of butter. Sorry, again. I wouldn’t recommend cutting this down or you’ll lose texture and flavor. I use unsalted, if you use salted adjust the salt you add to the custard (you’ll only need a very small pinch)
salt: Brings out the flavors. If you forget the salt, your bake will just taste a little more bland.
blueberry-lemon cream cheese french toast pairing options
Breakfast foods, of course! Here are some ideas:
crispy bacon
breakfast sausages
fried eggs
fruit salad
breakfast charcuterie
hard boiled eggs and sriracha
crumbled and sauteed chorizo
sausage and peppers
coffee :)
