Baked Panetonne French Toast Recipe & A Chocolate Baking Contest

Let me start this post by saying...I hate fruit cake. That weird, solid block of strong tasting bread is NOT something that means Christmas to me. In fact, I avoid it all costs, and can't remember even getting it near my mouth for years. So liking Panetonne is weird. I mean, isn't it kind of the same thing? Panetonne is basically the Italian version of fruitcake. But surprise, surprise, those freaking Italians have found a way to make it taste less like something your dotty grandma made 12 years ago, and more like angels prepared it at a Milanese bakery and then dropped it off at your local supermarket.

Two Pounds of Panetonne = Heaven

Although traditionally it is just sliced and eaten with a hot drink or a glass of wine, I wanted to spruce it up and create a holiday brunch item. Enter... Baked French Toast Panetonne With Spiced Apples.
Yes, you read that right. Put your tongue back in your mouth, you're drooling all over the keyboard. Here's the recipe for an unbeatable brunch on a cold morning.

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Baked French Toast Panetonne With Spiced Apples

1. Slice two apples thinly, and cook them on a medium heat with 1 teaspoon of butter (or light olive oil) 1 tablespoon of honey and a teaspoon of cinnamon. 

2. When apples are soft, place them at the bottom of a baking dish. 

3. Layer slices of Panetonne on top of the baked apples, covering the entire dish.

4. Mix up 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of milk, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Pour this over the entire dish, making sure all of the bread has some moisture. 

5. Bake for 35 minutes, uncovered, at 350 degrees. 

7. Serve warm with Greek yogurt if a breakfast item, or with ice cream or custard for dessert.

The recipe will really only serve two hungry people for breakfast, or maybe 4 for dessert. It can easily be doubled or tripled if you want to make it for a larger crowd. I think it would have been great if I sprinkled on a few extra raisins before baking it as well--next time!

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To counteract that little slice of heaven up above, let me switch gears to running for a bit. I may have been a little disappointed over my half on Saturday, but that just means I'll have to work that much harder before the marathon. Here's what I have been up to the last few days:

Sunday = Easy 4 mile run. Less painful that I expected. I was mistaken.

Monday = Crazy sore legs. Whoops. Took off from running and enjoyed an hour of yoga instead.

Tuesday = 10 x 400 intervals at 1:57 (7:48 pace). Surprisingly, this felt...good? 8 miles total.

Wednesday = 7 miles easy. Was supposed to be a quick run but I had music on and just spaced out. Love when that happens!

Proud Wifey Alert!

And now, if you will allow me to brag for a second. Let it be known that I have zero cool hidden talents. What you see is really all you get. So I live vicariously through my husband Tim. He can build anything, fix my computer every time I do something dumb, play guitar like Slash, and sing to make my heart melt. Except he's also humble, and hides just how awesome he is a lot of the time. So here's me bragging for him. He loaded a bunch of music he's been working onto a cool site, and I put a widget on the right hand side of my blog so you can just press play a hear one of my favorite songs. He sings, he plays the instruments, he puts it all together. Don't ask me how, just listen. I won't be held responsible if you can't stop humming it!

Love my sexy rockstar!

I've bragged, now it's your turn. Are you proud of your child, husband, wife, sister or dog for doing something amazing? Tell me about it!

What is the ultimate Christmas breakfast food for you?

Usually breakfast is a blur because we can't open presents until we've eaten (old family rule!) so it's normally a bowl of cereal eaten quickly. But I guess now I'm old enough to branch out, and I like the idea of making this dish as a breakfast tradition for the holidays. 

In the top picture, you can see I have two loaves of Panetonne. I used the one with raisins for this dish, but there is also one with chocolate. Any suggestions for a way to create a great dish using that one? It's basically a rich chocolate bread, so you can't go wrong. Give me your suggestions, and the one I pick to make will win a special prize from me! Just leave your ideas as a comment, and I will pick one this weekend. Thanks!

I received the Bauducco Panetonne for free through the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, but the opinions and recipes are my own.