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Instructions

Stale bread makes great French toast, slicing bread ahead of time is a great idea–at least a few hours ahead of time, but ideally overnight.

Mix the cream cheese and ricotta cheese together. Be sure to set your cream cheese out ahead of time to soften, this will make mixing it with the ricotta cheese much easier. I’ll often mix these ingredients ahead of time. If making a smaller amount, the cheese mix is about a 2 to 1 ratio of ricotta to cream cheese.

To make the apple mix, peel, slice, and remove the cores of the apples. Apples vary quite a bit in size, but I usually end up with about 4-6 cups of apple slices, and I generally use gala or fuji apples, which take little time to cook down.
Melt about 2 Tbsp of butter in a pot and add apples. Mix with butter and cook over medium heat. Add candied ginger slices–I think ½ to 1 cup is a good amount of candied ginger–but there is no wrong amount. Add 1-2 Tbsp of sugar and cinnamon as desired, Mix
and cover and cook about 20 minutes, until apples soften and get juicy, for extra liquidy goodness, stir in about ¼ cup water. You want the apples to be a little syrupy, that way you won’t have to use any maple syrup with the French toast. Once the apples are cooked to your liking, cover and set aside.

Mix the French toast batter. A basic batter is eggs and milk–and I’m also adding cinnamon–but often folks will add a little sugar or vanilla extract. Combine the milk, eggs, and cinnamon to taste (½ tsp is a good amount). Mix well and then pour some into a shallow bowl–or all–it depend on the size of your shallow bowl; you don’t want the batter to be so deep that it runs into the cheesy part of your French toast sandwich.

To build the French toast sandwich, simply spread the cheese mixture onto a slice of toast and top with another slice, making a basic cheese sandwich.

You can also add toasted walnuts into the sandwich for a nice crunch, or simply top the toast later with toasted nuts–but definitely add nuts at some point, cause the crunchy contrast makes the dish, and toasted walnuts are awesome.
Toast walnuts on a baking sheet and roast at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5-7 minute. As soon as the nuts begin to color up, remove them from the oven.

Once you’ve constructed the cheesy French toast sandwich, heat a little butter on a non-stick skillet on medium heat.
Place the sandwich in the batter and let soak a few moments and then turn and batter the other side.
Place sandwich in the skillet and cook on medium heat until golden brown, turn and cook other side and remove from the heat.

Slice French toast and top with apples and walnuts (a dusting of powdered sugar is optional). For a splash of color, add fresh berries or mint.

Serve French toast with maple syrup, or without–I find the cooked apples to be syrupy enough, and the warm cheesy center keeps the French toast from being too dry.

Enjoy!