Nashville Hot Bread Pudding French Toast

If Nashville Hot Chicken and French Toast and Bread Pudding had a menage a trois, this little fluffy, custardy, creamy, sweet-hot gem is what we'd have on our breakfast plates. And just in time for a leisurely weekend breakfast.

This is a post about French Toast. but it borrows from bread pudding and fried chicken Nashville Hot-style. It's still sweet, but now it's got a bit of a kick. Sweet and fiery! I love it, especially with really good (and really crispy) bacon to tie everything together. It's got the custardy texture of bread pudding, but none of the wait for it to bake in the oven. It's got the heat and color of Nashville Hot Chicken, but without the dipping and breading of the chicken. Hah! I guess the egg comes first in this dish, not the chicken. 

I don't know what sparked this recipe for me. Maybe I just wondered if a little heat might be fun with the maple syrup, after all, we do make candy out of bacon, so what's to stop us from making hot French toast. Whatever happened that morning, I'm glad I went exploring and came up with this new recipe. I made it two days in a row...just to be sure it was good twice. It was!

For a printable recipe, click here.