Croissant French Toast With Soft Caramel Apples

Submitted by jaefox1

"I got this from watching Tyler Florence on "The Tony Danza Show". I'm a college student, so you know that it's cheap to make! But my little cousins all go crazy over these."

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• Batter

• 3 eggs
• 1⁄4 cup milk
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon

• Caramel Apples

• 1⁄2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 6 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut in 1/2-inch-thick wedges
• 4 large plain croissants, split in half lengthwise
• confectioners' sugar, for dusting
• ground cinnamon, for dusting

directions

1. use granny smith apples because of their low water content. juicy apples, like McIntosh, fall apart and turn to mush (He wasn't lying. That's the worse batch I made!).
2. Make the batter for the French toast by whisking together the eggs, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon until evenly blended. Cover and refrigerate.
3. Pay close attention while you make the apples.
4. Put the sugar in a large, dry skillet and place it over medium-low heat.
5. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the sugar melts and begins to caramelize, about 5 minutes. Be careful; the sugar is really hot at this point.
6. Still stirring, add the butter, which will foam a little.
7. Once the sugar and butter become a caramel sauce, fold in the apple wedges. Now, because the apples are cooler than the sugar, the sugar may start to seize and harden, but don't trip out- KEEP STIRRING! Once the apples warm up the caramel will smooth out again.
8. When the caramel sauce loosens up and coats the apples, pour in the maple syrup.
9. Give it a stir and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the apples are fork tender.
10. Pull them off the heat and keep them warm.
11. For the french toast itself, warm the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium low heat.
12. You'll probably only be able to fit a couple of croissants in the pan at once, so make them in batches.
13. Take a croissant half and dredge it quickly in the batter. Do this QUICKLY or else the croissant will disintegrate if soaked in the batter.
14. Lay the croissants in the pan, cut side down and cook for 4-5 minutes. Carefully flip them over with a spatula and brown the other side.
15. The presentation is like a caramel apple sandwich. Put the bottom half of the croissant on a plate; spoon some of the caramel apples on top of that and cover with the top half of the croissant.
16. Dust with confectioners' sugar and cinnamon and enjoy!

Reviews

[highcotton]

Tyler's recipe calls for 1/2 cup maple syrup. Also, the amount of unsalted butter should be 6 T. rather than 3. Half is added to the caramelized sugar. The other half is melted in a separate skillet for frying the bread. (The original recipe is poorly-written, and it's easy to see how this mistake could occur when copying. I had to read it through several times to be sure...) Anyway, I hope I don't sound like the mean old school m'arm correcting your post, jaefox. :( Just didn't want someone to have trouble with what sounds like a lovely dish. I'll be back, no doubt with lots of stars, as soon as I have a chance to try it!

 

[lauralie41]

I made this for supper tonight and DH said he doesnt want french toast any other way! This is sinful, so delicious and worth the work. Do watch the sugar closely when melting as it is very easy to burn. My sugar clumped together before melting and after making the caramel sauce had a little bit of a burnt flavor. In the ingredients there is no mention of maple sugar but the directions said maple sugar is added. I had some caramel sauce in the refrigerator so I added enough to make a thin sauce. Thank you so much jaefox1 for posting this recipe! Made and reviewed for the Secret Ingredient tag game.