French Toast a la Kate Gibbs

A little while ago Kate Gibbs, Margaret Fulton's granddaughter, visited us at Breville and talked about her new cook book "After Toast". She had also made a 12 hour/80°C slow-cooked pork shoulder with brown sugar crust in the Breville Sous Vide. It was devine.
I am so intrigued to get my hands on one of those sous vides soon, especially after she mentioned how perfect it is for BBQ parties. She tends to sous-vide steak beforehand and just slaps it on the hot grill when the guests are there. Et Voila; always the perfect steak with a beautiful char grilled smokey finish. Sounds good to me.

Her new cook book is aiming at the aspiring cook and is filled with easy-to-make recipes. It will give you inspiration for breakfast, lunch and dinner yet also has delicious ideas for snacks and desserts.
The photography and styling is beautiful and they went to my favourite farmers market at Eveleigh for the market shots. Very nice!

Happy winner of the After Toast cook book.

This weekend I could no longer resist to try her recipe for spoonable French toast with maple berries. I am in love with raspberries at the moment and the combination of custard bread, maple syrup and tart berries really resonated with me.

As Kate puts it her take on the classic French dish is ideal for the sleepy-headed at breakfast time.
Instead of individually frying them and tossing them the whole dish goes in the oven and is spooned out. It's ideal to share and easy to make. 

There is no actual photo of the finished recipe in the book but that is how my French toast a la Kate Gibbs looked like.

Here is Kate's recipe for French toast

500 ml milk
3 free-range eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon caster sugar (see note)
1 tsp vanilla extract
10g butter (oh yes, use butter, it's French after all)
6-8 slices yesterdays bread, cut into triangles
125g raspberries, fresh or frozen
1 tbsp maple syrup
yoghurt, to serve

Preheat oven to 180degrees.
Whisk together milk, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract.
Butter a 20cm baking dish and arrange half the bread slices in the dish. Scatter most of the raspberries over, then top with remaining bread slices. Pour milk mixture over the top, then decorate with remaining raspberries. Drizzle with maple syrup and let it all soak for 10 minutes.
Now bake for 45-50min, or until golden brown on top but still soft inside.
Serve with dollops of yoghurt.

Now, I actually added 1 tablespoon of caster sugar to the milk mixture and instead of yoghurt used double cream. I know it's so much fatter but then again, it's so French! I also used a loaf tin and layered the slices in a different way but it works just as fine.
Can't resist maple syrup so would definitely serve some extra to drizzle over when scooped on the plate. Delicious!