Double Take: Croissant French Toast with Strawberry Syrup

Local strawberries are now in season in NC! As these tasty fruits reach their peak, it seems appropriate to test some of the USL recipe which include strawberries. Mel chose "croissant french toast with strawberry syrup." As the title indicates, the recipe substitutes croissants in place of loaf bread and includes fresh strawberry syrup in place of the familiar maple syrup. Topped off with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream, the french toast recipe looked sure to please.

Preparation:

(1/2 recipe...because my tongue gets bored trying to eat recipes designed for a whole family which take me a week to consume)

Whipped Cream

The recipe calls for 1/4 c. of whipped cream with 3/4 Tbsp of sugar. I complied. However, I suggest increasing the sugar to whipped cream ratio to at least double. Further, I like whipped cream. Who can resist it? Therefore, I'd probably double the amount of whipped cream for future preps.

Strawberrry Syrup

This strawberry syrup was quite easy. Core and slice a pint of stawberries and cover them in sugar. Be reasonable. 1/4 c. or less of sugar is plenty. Wait 30 minutes. Add some orange juice and orange rind. For the orange juice, add about the same amount (or less) as you have strawberry juice. Toss in a little orange zest. Boil for 5 -10 minutes. You want to have a syrup and not just liquid. While boiling, you're ready to start the toast.

Toast Dip

Beat an egg with a little milk (as you would for making scrambled eggs) and add 1/2 tsp of vanilla. That was easy.

Toast Prep

Melt butter in a skillet (enough to cover the base, this will vary with your skillet size but somewhere between 1-2 Tbsp). Slice your croissants in half. (A bread knife works well for this but lacking one, you could try the trick of slicing it with dental floss. You're guaranteed not to cut a finger with floss.) Dip both sides of each croissant half in the toast dip. Place in the skillet for 1-2 minutes per side. Voila!

Assembly:

Croissant base, syrup, whipped cream, croissant top, syrup, whipped cream. Devour.

The above quantities to prepare 2 croissants worth of french toast. The recipe takes about 55 minutes or so to execute since you have to cut up the berries and let them sit. The actual hands on time is about 20-25 minutes.

Review: The recipe as stated needed tweaking. I have most of these tweaks listed above. The strawberry syrup that I made wasn't thickened after 5 minutes of boiling. However, this could vary from week to week due to the weather. Strawberries picked on a rainy week have a high water content and spoil more quickly than those picked on a dry week. When I prepared this, my strawberries were definitely from a rainy week. I suggest to be attentive and use your best judgement for how thick you want your syrup to be. My main other comment is that I had mixed feelings about orange juice added to the strawberry syrup. It tasted fine. I could taste a hint of orange but it didn't overpower the strawberry flavor. However, I think you could make the syrup with lemon juice and zest or no citrus at all. This goes really well with a couple slices of bacon.

I would make this again. I liked it and enjoyed it even more the second time on the following morning.

Be sure to check out Mel's view at Fabulously Fun Food!