PAIN PERDUU

Pain Perdu is an old fashioned French nursery dessert. Very similar to French toast with a few twists. Ina Garten's recipe calls for a whole loaf of the Brioche bread and she makes mention that she likes to even serve this as a dessert when entertaining. the original recipe calls for strawberries soaked in Grand Marnier, I omitted this because mine was just a breakfast meal and while I had the Gran Marnier I didn't have any strawberries. As I mentioned the recipe's quantities will be great for a festive brunch but can easily be adapted for two.

PAIN PERDU
1/2 pint fresh strawberries hulled and sliced
2 T sugar, divided
3 T Grand Marnier, divided
6 x-large eggs
1 1/2 C milk or half&half
2 T honey
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. grated orange zest (I used lemon because I used blueberries and omitted the Booze)
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 brioche loaf or challah bread
unsalted butter
vegetable oil and 1/2 C sliced blanched and toasted almonds
confectioners' sugar

Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees
Soak the strawberries in 1T each of sugar and Grand Marnier
In a large bowl whisk together he eggs, milk, honey, 1T sugar, 2T of the GR, the vanilla, orange zest and salt. Slice the bread in 3/4 inch slices. Pour the egg mixture into a large shallow plate and soak a few slices of bread for 4 minutes turning once.
Heat 1 T each of butter and oil in a very large saute pan over medium heat. Take each slice of bread from the egg mixture , dip i side in the toasted almonds and place in the saute pan almonds side down. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side until nicely browned.Place the cooked bread on a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven. Repeat until all bread is used.
Sprinkle with the confectionery sugar and serve hot with strawberries.