French Toast & Bacon Egg Cups

French Toast & Bacon and Egg Cups

Recipe Review- Eggs, Bacon and French Toast in one bite- what could be better? 

I really love brunch. I'm a big breakfast person but I rarely get to eat it. That's not entirely true- I eat a meal in the morning everyday. Usually its a quick egg sandwich- or lately a fruit smoothie, not really much fun. Weekend brunch makes up for all those workday on the go breakfasts. With all its choices, leisurely pace, and requisite alcoholic beverages, brunch is special occasion not to be missed.

Over memorial day weekend a friend hosted a brunch so I decided to make some egg cups that Kevin had found a recipe for. I lost the link he sent me so googled and found another great food site- 15 Spatulas which had a similar recipe. I decided to change it up and make french toast for the bottom of the egg cups. This obviously make the recipe a little more complicated but I reallyyy liked the taste.

French Toast Egg Cups
yield: 12 servings

dozen eggs
6 pieces french toast
maple syrup (optional)
12 slices bacon
salt & pepper

Place bacon on a cold baking sheet in a cool oven. Turn oven to 400 degrees and bake for 15 minutes. Bacon should be mostly cooked- but still easily pliable. Prepare a muffin pan with a light coating of non stick spray. Let bacon cool and then wrap one piece around the sides of each muffin cup.

Cook french toast using your favorite recipe, and cool. Use a round cookie cutter slightly larger than the bottom of  your muffin pan to cut the toast into circles (you will get two for each piece of bread). Push one bread circle into the bottom of the muffin cups prepped with bacon. This will help to hold the bacon in place. Drizzle maple syrup over the french toast.

Crack one egg into each bacon cup. Season with fresh ground salt and pepper. Bake in oven preheated to 400 degrees for 12 minutes- or until your eggs have set up to your liking. Let cool for 3- 5 minutes and transfer to a plate and serve.

Notes: 

I overcooked my bacon- you want it to still be flexible but mine was bordering on crispy. That made wrangling the bacon into the cupcake tins tough to do- but I made it work.  

Since I was making a full dozen egg cups I went the oven method for the bacon. If you aren't making as many feel free to make your bacon on the stove top. 

You might be able to see the cupcake liners that I put into my muffin pan. I thought this was a genius idea, and would make them easy to remove. Nope. The papers adhered to the bacon and tore when I tried to remove them. So definitely do not do that!

If you don't care for french toast- I also experimented with doing hash browns for the bottom of half of them and that was equally tasty. 

I did the beginning steps with the bacon and french toast the night before, then covered the pan in plastic wrap and threw it in the fridge. All I had to do day of was preheat the oven and crack the eggs, and then sip a Bloody Mary while they cooked. 

Pistachio Chai Muffins

Recipe Review: Spice and Tea flavored muffins with a hint of sweet and a nutty crunch. Perfect if you don't like overly sweet breakfast pastries. 

I was reading last months Cooking Light when an article mentioned a Chai & Pistachio Breakfast muffins.  The recipe instantly went to the top of my "to make" wish list. I hate how most of the baked good breakfast options are super sweet. Don't get me wrong- I love dessert- just not first thing in the morning. These muffins are much more savory than they are sweet. The flavors were surprising, and although they are quite different from any muffin I've had before- I really liked them

Pistachio Chai Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 chai tea bags
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup shelled dry-roasted pistachios, chopped
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Stir with whisk until combined. Cut open tea bags; add tea to flour mixture, stirring well. Combine buttermilk, butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and egg in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Place 12 muffin-cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle nuts evenly over batter. Bake at 375° for 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

Combine remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, powdered sugar, and 1 tablespoon water, stirring until smooth. Drizzle glaze over muffins.

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If you follow this blog you might have noticed that I haven't had a post in quite a while. April was a whirl wind. I took a trip to LA with my sister over Easter, and also started working a part time job. Things have settled down a little bit and I'm getting into a new routine. Hopefully now that I've adjusted I'll be able to fit blogging in more easily. I really have missed it! New advances since I've updated is I am now a pinterest addict (who isn't) So if you'd like to follow me you can find me here!

Yosemite

Last weekend Kevin and I drove up to Yosemite for 3 days and nights of camping and hiking. It was an amazing trip. I had worked 20 straight days in a row, and Kevin and I had survived the first month of living together, we both desperately needed (and deserved!) a long weekend away.

When we got to Yosemite we went to the store to load up on food for the weekend, we kept things simple, sandwiches for lunches while hiking, kabobs on the grill for dinner, and egg sandwiches for breakfasts. We had planned on cooking the eggs on a camp stove, but our friend who lent us the camp stove forgot the regulator that connects the stove to the propane. (Thanks though Liz we still love you!) So we ended up cooking everything in a frying pan over charcoal, a little more time consuming but it turned out great. We also wound up inventing a completely euphoric egg sandwich that was way too good not to share.  So here you have it- rapture- in the form of a breakfast sandwich:

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Muffins

Recipe Review: Yummy easy to make breakfast muffins

Simmer Sister Lauren is in California for the weekend! I was so excited that I wanted to bake something special for her. Last week I baked some breakfast buns from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and they were amazzzingg so I wanted to try something else from Magnolia.

Tomato Basil Quiche

A few weeks back I was reading Tartlette- a great blog written by Helene Dujardin, a food stylist, photographer and ex French Pastry Chef. While her food always looks amazing much of it is a little advanced for me, and leans heavily toward baking. (I love baking for special occasions but I'm not going to be whipping up Galettes or Tartes unless there are other people there to eat it!) She did however have a post where she recommended a cookbook she had styled and photographed called Deliciously Organic by Carrie Vitt. I loved the fact that the book was all about using fresh, organic unprocessed food- but what really sold me was the photos of this quiche that they showed on the site. I ordered the cookbook right away and ooo'd and ahhh'd when it arrived in the mail. When I decided to host a brunch for my girlfriends I knew right away I was making this quiche for sure!

Magnolia Bakery's Cream Cheese Breakfast Buns

Recipe Review: The perfect breakfast pastry- light but rich, just sweet enough, and you can use any jam to make these your favorite flavor!

My sister made these breakfast buns for Christmas morning a few years back. They are like a cross between a muffin and a cupcake, with fruit preserves swirled on top. The recipe is from Magnolia Bakery, a New York City icon. They opened their first location in 1996, and now have four New York City locations, one in L.A. and even a Dubai location. They are always busy, and have been featured on Sex & the City, SNL and in The Devil Wears Prada. Magnolia actually lives up to the hype serving up delectable desserts, pastries, cupcakes, banana pudding, pies and more. They are open late too- between 10 and 12 (depending on the location) on most nights, its the perfect place to pick up dessert to eat on your subway ride home. (Last time I was in the city my friend Angela and I had finished our cupcakes and banana pudding before we even made it to the subway stop a few blocks away- oops!) They have put out quite a few cookbooks, and this recipe is from The Complete Magnolia Cookbook.

Breakfast To Go

Recipe Review: My go to Breakfast Sandwich recipe. Perfect to reheat and eat on the fly!

I am not a morning person. I never have been and I'm pretty sure that I never will be. I've gotten a little better over the years, but will basically do anything I can to get those extra 5 minutes of sleep. It typically takes me a full hour before I actually "wake up" and can wrap my groggy brain around a concept like breakfast. What this means is that most days I end up eating my breakfast at work. There's a Starbucks approximately 75ft from my desk, (which believe me- makes controlling my caffeine addiction challenging) so that's a nice back up, but I try to bring my breakfasts with me. Every week or so I prep a batch of breakfast sandwiches, that can either be refrigerated or frozen, so I can just grab them on my way out the door.

Frittata!!

I've never been good at eggs. My omelettes don't turn out light and fluffy, they are overcooked on the bottom, and undercooked on the top. I can't flip them. So whats the solution? Frittata! I had a ton of eggs that needed to be used up, and other odds and ends in the fridge that were on their last legs so I made an impromptu breakfast, that was supposed to be an omelette but ended a Frittata.