french toast

Brie and Blackberry French Toast

I can’t believe that it’s already Christmas Eve! Where does the time go? Fortunately, all of my gifts are bought and wrapped, and I’m ready for Santa to come tonight even if the holiday did sneak up on me. What I didn’t prepare for was a delicious Christmas breakfast. So I scrolled back through my Instagram and found one of my favorite easy and slightly decadent breakfast recipes that would be perfect for tomorrow morning.

This brie and blackberry French toast is super easy to make and the perfect sweet (but not too sweet) breakfast option. Don’t have blackberries? No problem! Strawberries and blueberries would also work great or even a frozen berry medley that you might have on had for smoothies! So let’s get to it:

Here’s What You’ll Need:

  • 4 pieces of bread of choice

  • 4 eggs

  • 1/4 cup milk

  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon

  • 4 oz brie (or more or less depending on preference)

  • 1/2 cup blackberries

  • 1 tsp chia seeds

Instructions:

  1. In a shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and cinnamon.

  2. Dip the slices of bread (both sides) into the mixture, fully coating.

  3. Cook the bread in a greased pan over medium heat on the stovetop until golden brown, flip and repeat on the other side.

    Once cooked, spread the brie on one side of one piece of the warm bread and top with a second slice. This should melt the brie. If not, you cant return them to the pan for a few minutes to do so. Repeat with the other slices.

  4. In the meantime, heat up the berries in a sauce pan over medium high heat. As they start to cook down, mix in the chia seeds to form a bit of a jam. Top your French toast with the blackberry mixture and a drizzle of maple syrup and enjoy!

Let me know how you enjoy yours and what you think in the comments below. Merry Christmas!

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Gluten Free and Vegan Chocolate Chunk Almond Butter Banana Bread and French Toast

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I'm pretty sure it must be a written rule somewhere that if it's a rainy day and you have ripe bananas, you need to make banana bread. Well, at least it should be a rule. Baking and rainy days are pretty much a must, and ripe bananas obviously mean banana bread. So banana bread it was!

I recently started using the Neat Egg (as I mentioned previously) as an egg replacement in some of my recipes. It has actually been wonderful! I'm not personally vegan, but my mom is. So it's nice to be able to bake something that I can actually offer her a piece of. Plus, you really can't even tell that there isn't an egg in the recipe, so the non-vegans will never know. 

I was fortunate enough to be able to team up with Neat over on my Instagram to give one lucky winner a full Neat prize pack which includes the Neat Egg and two Neat meat replacement mixes (original and Mexican). You still have a little time to enter (about 2 hours), so go check it out! In the meantime, let's get to the recipe!

Here's What You'll Need:

-3 ripe bananas
-1 Neat Egg
-1 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
-3 tbsp Gone Nuts Date Me almond butter
-1 cup coconut flour
-1 tbsp baking powder
-Pinch of sea salt
-1/2 of a 3 oz dark chocolate bar (I used an 88% cocoa bar, but that may be a bit bitter for some. Use whatever you like), broken into small chunks

Instructions:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2) Using a small hand mixer (or a KitchenAid style mixer works just as well),  mix together all of the ingredients except the chocolate chunks.
3) Fold the chocolate chunks into the mixture using a wooden spoon.
4) Pour the mix into a loaf pan that is either lined with parchment or sprayed with nonstick spray.
5) Bake for about 1 hour. Ovens may vary, so keep an eye on the bread. When it's ready the top should be golden brown.
6) Remove the bread from the oven, and let it cool completely before removing it from the pan.
7) Once cool, you can remove the bread and slice it.
8) Top with some additional Gone Nuts or the toppings of your choice, and enjoy!

A few things about the bread, there aren't a lot of added sweeteners like sugar or maple syrup because the Gone Nuts almond butter contains dates, vanilla, and coconut oil. If you're swapping out for a different brand, especially an unsweetened almond butter, definitely take this into consideration. I also didn't want an overly sweet bread because you can always add more almond butter or sweet toppings, but you can't take it out. If you prefer really sweet, feel free to add in some maple syrup or the sweetener of your choosing!

I also ended up using the bread to make some delicious gluten free and vegan French toast which I highly recommend! All you need is about 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1 tsp maple syrup, 1 tsp quinoa flour, 2 tsp nutritional yeast, and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Mix it all together in a bowl, and dip the banana bread slices into the mixture. Cook the slices in a pan on the stove top over medium to medium high heat, flipping half way through until each side is a golden brown. I topped mine with some maple syrup and more Gone Nuts, and it was SO GOOD.

Let me know if you give it a try and what you think in the comments below!