French Toast with Heirloom Apple Spoon Fruit and Pumpkin Cream

One of my favorite things about weekends is the possibility of brunch.  While my weekday breakfasts typically consist of cold cereal or whatever I can safely consume while driving, brunch is a leisurely, no-obligations indulgence filled with foods few of us have time for during the week — foods like french toast.

Those thick slices of bread soaked in cinnamony batter and then gently fried in butter to create a just-crisp crust and a creamy, custard-like center strike me as one of the brunchiest of brunch dishes — rich and delicious and a just teensy bit decadent.  Most folks simply drizzle theirs with maple syrup, and that’s a perfectly pleasant way to enjoy french toast, but french toast with Heirloom Apple Spoon Fruit and Pumpkin Butter whipped cream is nothing short of amazing.

The hints of cinnamon in both the Heirloom Apple Spoon Fruit and the Pumpkin Butter pair beautifully with the sweetness of the cream and the soft fluffiness of the french toast itself.  Each forkful is a delightful combination of the richly autumnal flavors of pumpkins and cinnamon and Michigan Northern Spy apples, making for a lovely brunch treat that tastes a little like apple pie, a little like pumpkin pie, and a lot like heaven.

French Toast with Heirloom Apple Spoon Fruit and Pumpkin Cream
printable recipe

For the french toast batter:
1 Cup Milk
6 Eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground cloves

For the pumpkin cream topping:
1 cup whipping cream
6 Tbsp American Spoon® Pumpkin Butter
3 Tbsp powdered sugar

For the french toast itself:
6 slices sourdough bread
butter as desired
1 Jar American Spoon® Heirloom Apple Spoon Fruit

1) Combine the ingredients for the batter in a 9×12 glass baking dish; whisk briskly. Arrange the slices of sourdough bread in the batter. Allow to soak for 15 – 20 minutes turning several times.

2) While the bread is soaking, whip the cream with an electric mixer on high speed until it begins to firm up. Add the powdered sugar and continue to whip until stiff and firm. Fold in the Pumpkin Butter, mixing gently and thoroughly. Set aside in the refrigerator.

3) Cook the soaked bread on a buttered griddle or large sauté pan on medium heat until golden brown on both sides, making sure the batter is cooked all the way through.

4) Heat the Heirloom Apple Spoon Fruit in the microwave for 30 seconds.

5) Place the cooked French toast onto plates, top with the warmed Apple Spoon Fruit and the Pumpkin Cream.

Other recipes that feature Pumpkin Butter:
Pumpkin Maple Whoopie Pies
Pumpkin Pudding

Additionally, the Pumpkin Cream featured in this recipe would be equally fantastic on top of brownies, chocolate cake, or apple pie.

Autumn in Michigan’s Northern Fruitlands

When Justin discovered that my familiarity with the Leelanau Peninsula consisted of a single stroll through Sutton’s Bay and a similarly brief visit to Fishtown, he insisted that I get out and explore.  Now, while half the apple harvest hangs in the orchards and grapes still dangle from their vines.  Now, before the crimsons and the goldenrods and the bright greens of autumn fade into the browns and grays and blahs of winter.

So I did.  Justin made me a map and highlighted a route that wound through the countryside taking me past the Bardenhagen Family Farm where our Early Glow Strawberries are grown, up Jelinek Road through the orchards where Marty & Martin Jelinek grow our Harlayne Apricots, around a curving slope of land lined with Gary Fredrickson’s apple and pear trees, down a little dirt road to the farm where Gene and Kathy Garthe tend a fledging quince orchard on our behalf, and through the adorable little town of Northport to Christmas Cove Farm, where John and Phyllis Kilcherman curate an impressive collection of 240 varieties of antique apples.

And everything was so breathtakingly beautiful that I found myself committing all sorts of distracted driver transgressions:  straying into the oncoming lane as I admired the scenery, slowing to a near stop to contemplate an alternate route, or swerving off onto the narrow shoulder to hop out and take a photo.

Still, I managed to make it safely all the way to the tippy top of the peninsula and back again, breathing in the crisp air, snacking on antique apples, watching leaves flutter to the ground, and basking in the golden glow of autumn.

Easy Entertaining with Fig Conserve

I spent last weekend in North Carolina visiting friends and family, walking barefoot on the beach, and eating Fig Conserve. I’d anticipated a weekend filled with shrimp and crabs and big game fish, and there was plenty of all that, but our late afternoon cheese and fig snacks were among the weekend’s culinary highlights. The Fig Conserve is one of my favorite American Spoon products. It’s filled with chunks of honeyed figs and their tiny, crunchy seeds, all accented with the bright notes of citrus. It’s completely divine — sweet and fragrant and just a teensy bit zippy — and I’d be content to just gobble it up by the spoonful. Of course, it’s generally considered impolite to sit around eating jam straight from the jar, which is where the cheese comes in.

From Apples to Apple Butter

During the summer, Charlevoix is a bustling resort town full of boaters and shoppers and beachgoers, but once Labor Day has passed, the crowds gradually disperse and quiet settles over the town like a blanket.  Charlevoix remains wrapped in this off-season somnolence until the second week in October when, just as the air has turned crisp and frost has begun to kiss green grass, she kicks off her blanket to host the annual Charlevoix Apple Festival.