Baked French Toast and Chilled Fruit Salad

Two other dishes I made for Grandparents Day brunch were Baked French Toast and Chilled Fruit Salad.  Both were amazing.

Baked French Toast
I was a little concerned about whether this would turn out, but it was a favourite at the brunch.  Its a lot more like bread pudding - oh, so good.

Ingredients

1 loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices and some cut in half

8 eggs

2 cups 2% milk

1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 tablespoons golden corn syrup

   
Directions

Arrange the slices of bread in a large ceramic pie plate. 

Beat together eggs, milk, half and half, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices making sure all are coated. Cover with tin foil and refrigerate overnight.

The morning of your brunch/breakfast, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup and heat until bubbling.  Remove from heat and immediately pour over bread and egg mixture, again ensuring that all bread is coated.

Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Cover with tin foil and bake for additional 10-15 minutes.  (If I did anything differently, it would be to put a baking pan under the pie dish as the mixture bubbled over and made a pretty good mess in the oven.  Oh well, it was time to clean it anyways.)

Chilled Fruit Salad
This version is based, in part, on the recipe found here. The pudding mixture and the juices from the canned fruit make a lovely dressing that is almost glaze-like.  (Tip: If you don't want to use canned fruit, use 1 cup of orange juice instead and mix the pudding into the orange juice.)

Ingredients

1 (14 ounce) can peach slices, undrained
1 (14 ounce) can pineapple chunks, undrained
1/2 box dry vanilla instant pudding mix
1 lb strawberry, stemmed and quartered
1/2 pint blueberries
2 cup green grapes 
2 medium bananas, sliced

Directions
In a large bowl, combine peaches, pineapples, and vanilla pudding mix.  DO NOT DRAIN THE FRUIT.
Mix well until pudding is dissolved.

Stir in strawberries, blueberries, and grapes.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight.

Add bananas and mix just before serving in the morning.
Enjoy!