Baked Banana French Toast

Who doesnt like french toast? I never really eat it, but when I do, I always think why has it been so long. And then another three years go by before I have it again. Such a shame because its so good and gives me a reason to eat syrup.

I have been craving it for several weeks now, so I thought I would make baked french toast.

These were so fun and easy. I love how cute they came out served in individual dishes.

You can have them whipped up in a snap and save them for later to serve.

Cut 1/2 to 3/4-inch slices of French Bread.

Mine were somewhere in between so that I could fit three pieces into these cute little dishes I had.

And Im so sorry. I have absolutely no idea where I bought them.

Marshalls and TJ Maxx always have cute little dishes on sale though. Maybe it was there.

Eggs. Milk. Cream. Off to a good start.

Sugar, vani! lla, and cinnamon. Even better.

Whisk it all together until blended.

And then dip your bread slices in the mixture and soak up all that goodness.

Place three slices of coated bread in each dish.

And stuff a couple of bananas in between each slice.

But first coat the bananas in the same mixture and then dip them in brown sugar.

Oh yeah!

Stuffed. Next time, Ill stuff two on each side instead of one.

Let the dishes chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

When your ready to bake, mix a little brown sugar and butter and sprinkle on top.

When they are done, youll end up with these baked banana bread beau! ties.

Just sprinkle some powdered sugar on. Some sugar? or a lot.

I lean towards a lot.

Pour maple syrup on top and you are good to go.

Yum! Yum!

Baked Banana French Toast Cups

1 small loaf french bread
4 eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large banana
6 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
Powdered sugar
Maple syrup

• Coat six 4 oz. ramekins with non-stick spray.
• Cut french bread into 18 slices. Cut them about 1/2 3/4 inch thick. Make sure three will fit in each dish easily.
• In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, milk, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla until blended.
• Place sliced bread in bowl to coat.
• Place three slices of bread into each dish.
• Cut banana into 12 or more slices. Coat slices with mixture and then dip coated bananas in 2 tablespoons brown sugarand stuff in between bread.
• Transfer dishes to a baking sheet. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour or overnight.
• When you are ready to bake, mix together remaining 4 tablespoons brown sugar and 1 tablespoon butter and sprinkle over bread.
• Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.
• Enjoy warm with powdered sugar and maple syrup.
• Makes six.

Enjoy!

And just curious, which way do you lean with your syrup?

Waffles? Pancakes? or French Toast?

Japanese Food @ Daimon Yokocho, Alam Damai, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur

We actually ate here a few months ago, but the photos sort of got lost in my pile of backlog. Daimon Yokocho serves Japanese food such as noodles, rice and gyoza, and you will not find things like sashimi here (though I think they sometimes serve this as a monthly promotion thing). Apparently it's a chain from HK, so on their walls you will see lots of photos of HK celebrities which have dined in their restaurant.

They serve both ramen and udon here, but the specialty is udon, which is handmade. All their ramen are above RM15 if I'm not mistaken, and if you choose the tonkotsu soup base, the price is on par/slightly more expensive thanGokuraku Ramen. Since we were here for lunch, we decided to order from their set lunch which is available from Mon-Fri (from 12pm-4pm) as it is better value for money. There are 9 choices, all served with green tea and flavoured egg.

Green tea

The decor is pretty simple, lots of wood furniture and furnishing

The set lunch menu

We weren't expecting the flavoured egg as it wasn't stated as being part of the set lunch. I have to say, it was very yummy. Still runny egg yolk and slightly soft egg white.. :)

Hubby ordered the Hokkaido Gyoza Ramen (RM16.90). The ramen is served with a lot of sweetcorn (I didn't mind it but Hubby thought it was maybe too much), fish cake, sugar snap peas and leeks. The broth tasted a bit weird for us, we asked the waitress what it was made of and she said "butter". Hmmm.... other than the broth, the noodles texture was fine.

The best thing we ate here was possibly the gyoza. I think the style of preparation was similar toGokuRaku Ramen too, steamed on one side and grilled on another. The filling was very juicy.

Since the specialty here is udon, I decided to try tomato soup handmade udon with gyoza (RM19.90). This is one of their bestseller but the soup is too tangy for me. I think I prefer a clear soup with my udon or ramen. Maybe I'm not supposed to drink the soup and only eat the noodles ala Japanese style? Thankfully, I also got a serving of 4 gyozas with my noodles.

We were given red paper fish to write our wishes on, and then the waitress would hang it from the ceiling of the al fresco section of the restaurant (at the back). It's really cool.

More views in the restaurant

This is BIG SUMO

Map to the restaurant

Restaurant exterior

Verdict: While the noodles were good, the broth was not really to our liking. If we return, we would possibly try the tonkotsu broth which we're accustomed to. Btw, there is a sauce/broth called satay peanut sauce. Hmm wonder how that would taste with udon.

Non-halal.

Opening times: 12-5pm, 6pm-12am.

Location: Restoran Jepun Daimon Yokocho, 32A, Jalan Alam Damai 1, Damai 23, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-9105 5063.

GPS Coordinates:3.071481, 101.742282

La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life and a Book Signing

This coming week is an important one for me. February 7th. The day when my cookbook is officially released.

Finally!

I couldnt be happier.

My cookbook, entitled La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life, will be sold in numerous bookstores all across the country, on Amazon, of course, and in a lot of other gift and pretty boutique stores (hello Anthropologie, I am so pleased you are welcoming my book!)

In any case, for all of you who already have a copy, or will have receive on soon, many many thanks for your support. You make a difference.

I know well that my book took its time to come out. After all, I announced it already in January 2009! But it was worth the wait as I am really happy with the way it came out.

It is ready. Cuit point.

One of my challenges was to accept the fact that to not every single one of my recipes would go inside the book (I know, Sara, this book would be so long); It was also to refrain from wanting to redo every picture; and accept the fact that I would not have all the pictures that I wanted inside either.

We made choices.

I think they are good ones.

On Wednesday February 8th, I will have a book signing at a lovely boutique called Pod, in Brookline village, from 5 to 7 PM. There will be treats. If you live close to where I am, I hope to see you there.

Pod
313 Washington Street
Brookline Village, MA 02445

Share and Enjoy:

The Estelle @ Northcote, Melbourne

The occasion was a friend's birthday and with any birthday dinner, it has to be (or at least be) the following:

1. A fancy place

2. A fancy place that is open for dinner since it was a public holiday

3. A fancy place that won't require you to break the bank

4. A fancy plan that doesn't require you to book months in advance.

With so many restaurants in every nook and corner of at least 10 inner city suburbs to choose from; I was surprised that I could even come up with a single suggestion and was even happier that the birthday girl was game to try.


The Estelle located in the middle of a long stretch of shoplots up at Northcote was to be where we would have dinner.

If I had to summarise in a few words; the place is casual yet classy and the food was modern, playful and creative. The place is quite cosy with no more than 30 odd seats.

A 3 course starts from AUD 50, 5 courses for AUD 70 and 7 courses for AUD 90. The menu has a list of dishes which the courses will comprise of and all you have to advise the waiter / waitress is what you don't eat and what you like. The exact dish and the sequence of the meal is determined by the chef.

The Estelle is pretty generous when it comes to their amuse bouche which features a squid cracker with sour cream (similar to the chinese prawn cracker we eat during Chinese New Year), a chickpea fry and a rock melon cube that has been flavoured with basil and a see through wrapper. The dishes were all spectacular and set the right tone for the meal.

Apart from the complimentary items, we were impressed with how understanding these people were. When I called for a booking, I was told there were 2 slots; 6.15pm and 8.30pm. We took the earlier option and hoped that 2 hours would be a long enough time to catch up and eat up (if they attempted to kick us out).


Thankfully, they did not mention to us at all about vacating the table because we were starting to sweat when one of the guests was stuck at a traffic jam and she eventually arrived 45 minutes late.

Our first meal was a beet root salad with goats curd rolled in black sesame. Simple and matter of fact probably required very little cooking. However the key to the dish was the simplicity and it was a good start to eat the contrasting flavour of vegetable and curd together.

The smoked eel was next. Experiences with eating eel done in an asian style i.e. japanese unagi or chinese stir fry tells me that I should be expecting a succulent piece of meat. However this was half way to being jerky like and while it was interesting, the brain tells you that it isn't right based on past experience. The playfulness of the cuisine starts when you have celery pieces that have been marinated with apple juice with the end result of a piece of celery tasting like apple.

The tuna, red cabbage and horseradish came out as a tuna sashimi cubes rolled in quinoa topped with horseradish cream and a red cabbage cold soup next to it. We were advised to eat it like a gazpacho. While the contrasting colours were not appetising, think purple, white, green and red with curdling cream, the flavours worked very well.

We always leave the best for last but in this case, I miss the best by not snapping a shot of the sher-wagyu rump which was served with mushrooms and black garlic. Even though it could not have been more than 100 grams, it was the best of the meals. Slightly traditional flavours; the grilled beef, jus and mushrooms (the asian variant), I could have another plate easily.

I could be wrong because I don't remember the dessert being called sour cream, pumpkin and salted caramel but it sounds the closest! to what we got that night. Basically we had a mix of ice cream, chunks of rather dry sponge, pumpkin seeds and a lot of ingredients that I can't remember. It almost felt like eating ice-cream cake but in that artistic form that you see above. The Wife being the Wife commented that this wasn't the dessert she was expecting. Whether the waitress eavesdropped or not, we were served a complimentary dessert after that.

No award for being the most appetising of dessert but we had the strawberry, vanilla and basil. Basil granita with a bottom of cream and strawberries. Never knew basil worked with strawberries so definitely going to give this combination a go when I make a fruit salad next time.

If I had categories to put restaurants into, I put the Estelle in a category that represents small portions, interesting concept, slightly artsy fartsy without blowing your wallet apart but might still leave you feeling hungry.


It also reminded me of Esquire, a place in Brisbane that has a similar concept in terms of food but in a more formal dining environment.

In any case, the birthday girl was happy and so were we.

Definitely will return when the menu changes or we will just have to make sure they don't repeat any of the dishes we ate that night.

Address and contact details:

Verdict: 4 stars out of 5 stars. Love the concept and the unorthodox dishes but beware of the small portions, it might leave you feeling hungry if you are a big eater.