South Court Inn Berry Cobbler Compote for French Toast

I answered the doorbell early one Saturday evening last summer and found myself greeting a smiling, free-spirit kind of fellow holding a gallon bucket of black raspberries.  Turns out, he and his best girlfriend were enjoying a nature walk and discovered a field full of wild raspberry plants just hanging full of juicy ripe fruit.  They picked until the sun headed down and ended up at our door with 5 gallons of raspberries.  Someone in town had told them to come see us as we were probably the only place that would be willing to buy fresh fruit in any quantity.  So, he wanted to know if I were interested in buying them.  I sure was!  We settled on a price and they left to fill the VW van with gas, while I headed to the kitchen to figure out what to do with the berries.
One taste and I realized that they were at peak ripeness and were already beginning to weep juice under their own weight.  These were too ripe to leave set in the fridge overnight and wait until Sunday when I'd have more time to work with them.  So it was quick, draw enough water in the sink to float a gallon of berries, set sheet pans next to the sink, pick out the stems, leaves, etc., and transfer the freshly cleaned fruit to the pans.  Next it was off to the freezer with each pan to quick freeze and then transfer the hard, frozen berries into gallon zip-lock bags.
Well, since then, we've enjoyed black raspberry pies and cobblers at breakfast, but the biggest hit has been using just the thickened berry cobbler base as a topping for our Croissant French Toast. Just ladle a little over each piece of French Toast before you take it to the table and pass the rest in a gravy boat for folks to help themselves.  The best part is that since our French Toast has no sugar, you get to enjoy the full eggy flavor of the toast and offset it with the sweet-tart flavor of the cobbler compote.  So, now that you have the recipe for the French Toast, here is the recipe for a mouth-watering cobbler topping for your toast when you make it:

 Ingredients:
1 quart fresh or frozen berries of choice
1.5 cups sugar
2 cup water (reserve 1/2 cup for later use)
2 cup fruity white wine or champagne
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preparation
Put water, wine, sugar and salt in a 3 or 4 quart sauce-pan and bring to a boil for 10 minutes.  Separately, in a cup, mix 1/2 cup water with the flour, beat until there are no lumps and set aside.  Add the berries to the boiling liquid and bring to a boil again.  As soon as the berry mixture begins to roll at the edge, turn the heat to lowest possible setting and simmer 10 minutes without stirring.  Next, add the lemon juice and stir the berry mixture without pressing or mushing the berries.  Then, take the pot off the fire, mix the flour/water mix to get the flour fully dissolved from the bottom of the cup and dump the flour mixture into the berry mixture.  Carefully stir the flour mixture into the berry mixture and return to heat.  Turn the heat up and continue carefully stirring until the mixture comes to a full boil.  As it boils, it will thicken to a runny, juicy consistency.  Take the pot off the heat, cover and allow to set for 10 minutes.  At this point you can use the topping for breakfast or you can transfer it to your containers of choice and refrigerate it until ready to use.  Reheat on high for a minute or so in a microwave to reheat when ready.

Comment:
You may find that you need to adjust the amount of sugar and flour depending on the fruits you use.  I've tried using strawberries, but have not liked it as well as with blackberries and raspberries.  For a different take, try mixing 1/2 cup of whipping cream into some of the compote just before going to table and you'll have a topping close to cobbler ice cream in flavor, but hot too.

Croissant French Toast Recipe

Welcome back to the South Court Inn B&B Blog.  It has been a while since I last posted, but hope springs eternal and I'm hoping I'll be able to stick to it a bit better this Spring.  As you can well imagine, cooking for the public is a real challenge.   When we opened Memorial Day Weekend, 2000, (and yes, please note that we are coming up on starting our 12th year in business!) I quickly discovered that our guests had some very strong ideas on what a B&B breakfast was supposed to be, and, at least here in Luray, heuvos rancheros was not on their list of things they wanted to try!  Recent discussion at the breakfast table seems to tell me that tastes have changed over the past 12 years, so I promise to give heuvos rancheros another try sometime in the near future.  So don't be surprised if you are here during the week if you come down to a great plate of eggs over a mound of refried beans splashed with green chili sauce and chili con queso with  Spanish rice on the side.

In the meantime, Saturday breakfast here at South Court Inn almost always features my version of French Toast and I want to share the recipe with you.  This recipe is different from those you might be accustomed to in that I bake it in sheet pans, use croissants instead of French or other breads, put no sugar in the custard and give it a haunting flavor by adding ground cardamom to the seasoning.  Note too that I do not salt to the custard because the croissants have enough salt to carry the whole dish.  With that said, sound the trumpets...here is the much requested recipe for croissant French Toast as we serve it here at South Court Inn!

Ingredients:
1 large or 2 small plain croissants per person
2 eggs per person to be served
1 cup half and half
1 tblspn vanilla
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 can non-stick spray

Mixing and Cooking:
Put the eggs, spices and half and half into a blender and blend on medium speed for about 1 minute.  Turn the blender off, remove the blender jar and set in the fridge until ready to dip the croissants.  Slice each croissant lengthwise into two pieces and set aside until ready to pan for baking.  When ready to prepare for baking, preheat your oven to 325F.  Thoroughly coat your baking pan with non-stick spray and set it for convenience on your prep table.  Remove the blender jar from the fridge and pour the contents into a bowl which is as wide as the croissants.  Starting with the croissant bottom, dip them in the custard mix just long enough for them to become moist but not sopping wet.  In fact, allow excess custard to drain from each bottom for a few seconds after dipping. Arrange the bottoms across the pan and repeat with the tops, placing each top over a corresponding bottom.  Once completed, spray the top of all the croissants with non-stick spray.  Transfer the filled pan to the preheated oven and cook for 45 minutes or done, according to your oven's cooking idiosyncrasies.  When done, the croissants should be nicely puffed and browned across the top.  Serve immediately with your favorite syrup or topping alternative.

Alternative Preparations:
During the fall color season, our guests really like the pumpkin version of this recipe I prepare.  Add a cup of pumpkin puree to the custard while it is is in the blender and blend for another minute.  Then (here's the hard part) put the custard through a fine strainer before dipping the croissant in it.  The final product looks better without random strands of pumpkin fiber sticking up into the air.  Serve the pumpkin croissant French toast with a sauceboat of caramel pecan syrup so folks can help themselves and stand back for the onset of a good case of MMMMMMMMMMMMssssssssssss to fill the room!    
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