Sourdough bread baked in a rich Dulce de Leche batter, topped with buttery brown sugar and almond streusel, and served with a drizzle of chocolate ganache.
Whether you serve it for breakfast, brunch, or dessert, this Dulce de Leche Baked French Toast is a deliciously luxurious way to spoil those you love the most. (Or, those you just want to impress.😉)
The delicious balance between sour, sweet and salty.
Achieving the right balance of flavors is so important for any dish, but often more so in sweet dishes. Desserts and sweet pastries can sometimes be one-dimensional, with sugar as the prominent flavor and nothing else to balance it out.
If you really want sweet dishes to sing, the sweetness in the dish must be balanced out by salt and acid. The easiest place to look for an example of achieving this balance is in many popular cake recipes. The classic Devil's Food Cake and Red Velvet Cake get their rich depth of flavor and tender crumb from the addition of acidic ingredients like buttermilk, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and sour cream.
My favorite Vanilla Cake and Caramel Cupcake Recipe also contains a generous portion of buttermilk and many muffin recipes, like these Mixed Berry Muffins, include some yogurt.
Likewise, salt does much more than make food taste salty. Salt enhances flavors in a way that brings out their essential flavor. It also balances sweetness and suppresses bitterness. Salted Caramel Sauce is the perfect example. A small addition of salt actually amplifies the sweetness in the caramel, making the caramel sauce taste, well... more caramel-y.
In this recipe for Baked French Toast, I wanted to maximize the dynamic between sour, sweet, and salty in a way that created a rich depth of flavor with some complexity. In other words... I didn't want it to taste like I was eating a plate full of sugar soaked bread.
By nature, Dulce de Leche is sweet. Along with a touch of brown sugar and the sweet, buttery streusel, the sweet component in this dish was well taken care of.
To balance all that sweetness, I included a generous amount of salt and decided to use sourdough bread and Kiefer instead of regular milk - acidic ingredients that are also packed with flavor.
What is Kefir?
Kefir is cultured, fermented milk made using “starter” grains. If you've ever made sourdough bread, you know that the first step is to cultivate a starter that's fermented and rich in wild yeast. The long fermentation of a good sourdough starter and all that wild yeast is what gives sourdough it's deliciously tangy flavor. It also includes prebiotics, and probiotic-like benefits.
Kefir is also made with a starter that is a combination of yeasts, milk proteins, and bacteria. It has a tart flavor, and is loaded with probiotic health benefits. Another bonus: because kefir is fermented, most people who are lactose intolerant can digest kefir without difficulty.
In this baked Dulce de Leche French toast, the tart, sour flavor of kiefer complements the sourdough bread and has a balancing effect on the sweetness of the caramel. The result is a rich, complex caramel flavor that isn't cloyingly sweet.
Kefir Substitutions:
You can substitute buttermilk or plain, unsweetened yogurt for the kefir in this recipe. If the yogurt you're using is quite thick, thin it slightly with a bit of milk, water, half and half or cream, until it's the consistency of heavy cream.
French Toast for a Crowd
The beauty of baked French toast is how easy it is to serve to a crowd. And with the holidays fast approaching, I can't think of a better way to spoil your guests. Rather than standing over the stove, serving up individual platefuls of French toast, baked French toast can be prepared the night before and then simply baked.
It makes an outrageously decadent breakfast or brunch dish, but can also be served as an elegant dessert. The recipe can be cut in half if you are only preparing it for a few people. Likewise, it can be doubled or tripled (or more!) for those times when you're feeding a crowd.
Eat Dulce de Leche Baked French Toast for breakfast or brunch...
For brunch, serve Dulce de Leche Baked French Toast with a drizzle of chocolate ganache OR maple syrup. Either option is equally delicious so I usually serve both, allowing each person to select the one they prefer.
And, if you really want to gild the lily, serve this dish with some lightly sweetened whipped cream. A few slices of banana are also crazy good on there.
Or, eat it for dessert.
Baked Dulce de Leche French Toast makes a gorgeously rich and elegant dessert. I like to serve it in a cocktail or wine glass topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a generous amount of chocolate ganache. Sooooo incredibly decadent and delicious.
More Recipes You Might Like:
- Overnight Homemade Caramel Rolls
- Easy Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
- Dulce de Leche Granola Cookie Bars
- Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce
- Apple Cinnamon Muffins with Streusel
- Extra Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes
- Double Chocolate Muffins
If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment, rate it, or take a picture and tag it #ofbatteranddough on Instagram.
Happy baking!
📖 Recipe
Dulce de Leche French Toast with Streusel
Sourdough bread baked in a rich Dulce de Leche batter topped with buttery brown sugar and almond streusel and served with a drizzle of chocolate ganache. Whether you serve it for breakfast, brunch, or dessert, this Dulce de Leche Baked French Toast is a deliciously luxurious way to spoil those you love the most. (Or, those you just want to impress.😉)
Ingredients
- One 2-pound loaf of sourdough bread
- 13.5 ounces dulce de leche
- 6 large eggs
- ⅔ cup Kefir, plain and unsweetened, low-fat or full-fat (*See note for substitutions)
- ⅔ cup heavy cream
- 1 ½ teaspoon table salt (Or 2 teaspoon kosher salt)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
For the streusel topping:
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup dark brown sugar
- ½ cup old-fashioned oats
- 3 ounces (½ cup) roasted unsalted almonds, chopped
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon table salt (or ¾ teaspoon kosher salt)
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
For Serving:
- 1 recipe chocolate ganache (optional)
Instructions
- Cut the bread into 2-3-inch cubes and spread them out into a 9x13 baking dish.
- Add the dulce de leche, eggs, Kifer, cream, salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and almond extract to a large bowl and whisk to combine. Don't worry about getting the Dulce de Leche completely blended in - there will be small chunks throughout.
- Pour the mixture over the bread and toss the bread around in the pan a bit to make sure it's all evenly coated. Using your hands or the back of a spatula, press the bread to pack it down into the pan.
- Cover the pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
- Combine all the streusel ingredients in a small bowl, stirring until well combined. Cover and chill along with the French toast.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Remove the French toast and streusel from the refrigerator. Sprinkle the streusel over the top of the French toast in an even layer.
- Bake for 45 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.
- Drizzle with chocolate ganache if desired.
Notes
You can substitute buttermilk or plain, unsweetened yogurt for the kefir in this recipe. If the yogurt you're using is quite thick, thin it slightly with a bit of milk, water, half and half or cream, until it's the consistency of heavy cream.
Nutrition Information:
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 0Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 0mgCarbohydrates: 0gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 0g
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