Mother's Day Brunch - Cast Iron Pears & French Toast with Cinnamon Marscapone

Happy Mother's Day! It was Australian mother's day today as well as in the States, but as we celebrated the British Mothering Sunday back in March, today was an understated celebration. But, it was the most perfect first (real) Mother's Day for me as I think I spent about 98% of the day cuddling my baby girl, and so I couldn't have wished for more. 

Well....maybe I would have wished for a second serve of brunch!! 

Mr M is renowned for his breakfasts, he's always made a mean crepe or pancake, and has mastered French Toast in the past few months. When we were in New York over Christmas we had brunch out at a cute little place in Williamsburg, Cafe Colette, where we ate the best French Toast we'd ever had! We both ordered the Cast Iron French Toast with poached fruit as we thought it sounded incredible. We were right, it was incredible! When we got back to London we had a go at making it ourselves and found it to be worth the extra step of poaching the fruit first, it is quite simply the best french toast you could have! 

French Toast is best made on bread that is starting to go old and stale, and as most Gluten-Free breads aren't terrible soft and light, they are perfect for French Toasting!! It was our first attempt of GF French Toast and as we were devouring it in record time, Mr M said to me "I'm so glad we can eat this again, I was devastated to have lost this breakfast". Good to see the drama and love of food is catching on!!

Ingredients

Bread (GF or regular, but if regular, have 3 day old bread)

2 eggs

3/4 cup of milk

Cinnamon

Marscapone

Fruit of your choosing - we used pears, but apples, peaches, plums, figs or apricots would all work!

Demerra sugar (raw sugar)

Method

1. Start off by poaching the fruit. To do this you need to slice it into 1 cm thick pieces and line it in a cast iron pan. Cook on medium heat for about ten minutes. Towards the end add a teaspoon of sugar to help caramelise slightly, meanwhile prepare the toast. 

2. Beat eggs, milk and cinnamon together until well combined. 

3. Dip each piece of bread in the egg mix and let the excess drip off. 

4. Place eggy bread in a hot pan (that has had a bit of butter melted in) and cook until both sides have browned. This will take about 5 minutes. 

5. Start placing the cooked bread on top of the cooked fruit and break apart to fit in the gaps so that its one layer. 

6. Pour excess egg mix over the bread to fill the gaps completely. 

7. Place under the grill/broiler for a few minutes until the egg has cooked completely. 

8. Serve with Cinnamon Marscapone (which is simply marscapone cheese mixed with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of icing sugar). 

Enjoy immediately while hot and while the bread is still a bit crunchy on top!

So that was my request for Mother's Day Brunch this morning. We got up and made breakfast together and ate with out little girl babbling away in her highchair next to us. It was perfect in every single way.

A big happy Mother's Day to all of my mum/mom and soon-to-be-mum/mom friends as we all enjoy our first (and a few celebrating more) Mother's Day, the special God-Mothers with their never-ending love for our babies, as well as all of those seasoned mum's out there that have been doing this for all of our lives too! I hope you've all had a few extra cuddles and kisses from the special ones who have made us who we are so incredibly lucky to be. It is the most overwhelming and wonderful honour in the world.