Lemon Cream Stuffed French Toast

Mother's Day is just around the corner! For some reason, this holiday always makes me think of French Toast. Maybe it's because Mother's Day feels like one of those mornings you wake up to sneak to the kitchen and surprise Mom with breakfast in bed. Or going out to brunch with family - either way, French Toast is pretty to look at, simple to make, and delicious to eat. Check out my other French Toast recipes for Hot Chocolate French Toast, Pumpkin French Toast, and King's Hawaiian French Toast! :)

One of the most popular items on a brunch menu is often a Lemon Ricotta Stuffed French Toast. The idea of making this at home was intriguing to me - how hard could it be? Turns out, it's super simple and only takes 20 minutes. What I love about this recipe is that you can substitute ricotta for mascarpone or cream cheese like I did :) Adding fresh lemon zest and juice to the filling gives the perfect punch to this sweet breakfast. Top it off with your Mom's favorite fresh fruit and you'll be chalkin up all kinda Brownie points :) Let's get cookin!

What You Need: (Yields 2 servings)

For the French Toast:

1 loaf or 4 thick slices of your favorite bread. Experiment here! I'm using delicious Hokkaido Milk Bread! :)
1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
butter, for frying
maple syrup or agave syrup
Optional: powdered sugar for serving
Optional: fresh fruit for serving

For The Lemon Cream:

4 oz or 1/2 cup of your choice of: ricotta cheese, mascarpone cheese, or cream cheese
2 tbsp sugar
juice and zest of 1 lemon

What To Do:

French Toast works best with day-old bread. But if all you have is a fresh loaf, no worries! For this recipe, it's best to have fairly thick pieces of bread. If your loaf is pre-sliced, you can spread the lemon cream on one slice and sandwich the cream between 2 slices.

If you don't have day-old bread, throw the bread into a low temp oven, or even in the toaster or toaster oven for a few minutes. This will help the bread soak up the custard mixture. Whichever way you like, prepare your bread. As you can see, I toasted my bread!

Next, prepare the lemon cream. Whip 2 tbsp sugar into 4 oz (1/2 cup) cream cheese, ricotta, or mascarpone. Add the juice and freshly grated zest of 1 lemon.

Prepare the custard mixture for the French Toast by whisking together 1/3 cup milk, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 2 eggs.

Time for filling the French Toast! If you're using thick slices of bread, simply slice a small pocket in the middle of each slice. If you're using thinner pre-sliced pieces of bread, spread the lemon filling in between 2 slices of bread and treat it as 1 slice!

Spoon some of the lemon filling into the pocket :)

Dip each slice of bread into the custard mixture and let it soak for a minute, then flip it and allow the other side to soak. It's important to let the bread really absorb the egg mixture, or you'll end up with dry French Toast!

Heat a tiny drizzle of oil in a large pan over medium low heat. Add a small pat of butter. Swirl the pan to combine the two and coat the pan.
Cook each piece of toast slowly until each side is set and golden brown, about 5 minutes. Turn and cook the other side. Since my bread was so thick, I also used a spatula to turn the bread on all of its four sides to brown all the edges!

That's it! Serve immediately with fresh fruit, syrup, and powdered sugar. I love fresh raspberries with the lemon cream...it's the perfect counter to the sweetness of the French Toast!

The creamy, tart filling is such a nice surprise. It's a nice twist on classic French Toast! Why wait in line for brunch when you can make your own at home? :) Hope you all have a great week and Mother's Day weekend!

If you've tried any recipes from the blog, let me know! Shoot me a tweet @bac_blog or tag me @_brokeandcooking on IG!