Hi, I'm Chris Fennimore, and I'm a brunchaholic.

I can't get enough of this mid-morning, slow paced combination of sweet and savory dishes that combine the best of breakfast and lunch.

When we did our show devoted to brunch, I made a version of French Toast that was based on an extravagant version I had encountered in the Chapel Hill, North Carolina diner.

I'm going to make a sort of a hit, you know, over and over, adding on to something that's delicious by itself and that's French toast.

We always have French toast, but this is like three times French toast.

And it comes from, when I was down in North Carolina at my niece's wedding and we were in Chapel Hill, and Lauren and I went into this little place and we had French toast.

It was the best French toast I'd ever had.

I have to ask you, since I went to school in Chapel Hill and lived there for four years, where was this place?

Do you remember?

Oh, no, I don't, because it was right on the main street by the school there, and it was right on, practically on the campus.

Yeah, because there's a very famous coffee shop.

The Carolina Coffee sho was famous for its French toast.

That was it!

That was at it?

Oh, I can't tell you how many times I've had this French toast.

Okay, well, but what they do is they coat the French toast in, cornflakes.

Yes, they do.

And I was trying to figure out how they made it so crunchy.

So that's what we're going to do.

Oh yeah!

I didnt know this.

To leave well enough alone.

I'm also going to stuff it with some cream cheese and preserves, just so that there's a little surprise on the inside.

Yeah.

So the first thing, I guess that you, if you want to help out here, is to crush these, because, sure, you could leave them whole, I suppose, but they're supposed to be crushed, and I don't want to put it in a processor because I don't want to end up with corn flake flour.

You know, i would just be too little crumbs.

I see this, he knows my limitations.

This I can do.

Now, while you're doing that.

What I have here is a loaf o egg bread that I made last night He makes his own bread for the French toast.

I hate you.

You know what it is you need, you need a nice, dense, bread.

And, you know, just plain white bread won't hold up to what we're going to do to this.

So I'm just going to take it and I'm going to make a couple of slices and not too thick because, as I said, we're going to double slice it.

And the recipe that I've included in the cookbook calls for eight servings.

So we would need 16 slices.

I'm not going to do that many right here because.

Oh come on.

Well, eventually eventually we'll eat all of this and we'll make and eat all of it today.

But just for the demonstration.

So how how are the crumbs coming there?

They are just about done I don't want to overdo it, okay.

I like to keep them crunchy.

Boy, I can't believe you got this here.

I was just this past summer I went to Chapel Hill first time I've been there in 15 years, and we.

I said to my husband we have to go to Carolina coffee and you have to order their French toast.

We actually stayed at the Carolina Inn.

Oh, isnt that charming?

just a short walk from there.

And it was.

It was a lovely wedding.

I really have to say.

We had a wonderful time.

It's a lovely school.

I'm glad it was a lovely wedding.

Here's what I'm going to do.

Oh, I have to make now the the other part for the, obviously, you can pour that into that bowl.

The other part that we have to make is that the mixture to dip the, the bread, the bread into, to make it, French toast.

Can you pass me that, white bowl?

Okay.

Good.

And this, this is an admittedly very rich version of, a French toast because it has six eggs and one cup of cream as the as the base.

Must be fabulous.

it's necessary.

I don't know how else to put it.

And I'm going to mix it right in the, in the dish that I'm going to dip the, toast in so that, I don't have to ruin another bowl.

Okay, so that's six eggs, one cup of cream, heavy cream.

And I'm going to put in about a teaspoon of vanilla.

And I'm going to put in about a tablespoon of sugar.

Heavy tablespoon and some cinnamon.

If you like a lot of cinnamon.

I always overdo it.

And then I'm just going to whisk this all together.

And make sure that I beat this until the sugar has dissolved.

Now that has the vanilla.

Yeah.

The vanilla.

Really.

Now you'll see the difference in this when you use cream instead of milk.

It really is just a much thicker product altogether.

We'll put that out of the way.

Take this and put that all of the sort of ingredients for making this.

And now I want to lay out the bread because this is where we do the stuffing part.

And I want to make sure that the bread matches.

Absolutely.

I know how you know, it sounds funny.

Maybe, no no, they should be.

I have problem just making lunch for my kids.

I'll put the peanut butter on one side, the jelly on the other, and go to put them together.

And they have the wrong size.

They don't match.

And it's awful.

Well, especially because I want these to close up properly, you know?

And, then what I'm going to do is onto each one.

I'm going to put a you know, about an ounce of, of, cream cheese that I've softened and I don't want it to go all the way to the edge.

Don't have to be fancy about it, because it's all going to melt on the inside.

Okay.

Could you use a flavored cream cheese or would that detract from it?

I think you could use a flavored cream cheese in a minute, but what I'm going to do is to put some preserves in here.

And what that does is that after it cooks well, I hope you'll agree it's a good idea.

It it makes like a fruit cheesecake on the inside of your French toast.

And we'll see.

We'll see what happens.

Now here I have three different kinds of preserves.

I have blueberry, apricot and strawberry.

And what's your favorite?

I would go with the strawberry.

Okay.

So we'll make two of these.

Strawberry one.

One has my name on it and one has your name on it.

And then I'll do.

I told you I was good for eight of these.

I'm going to do a blueberry and an apricot.

There are some people who are making gastro noises in the in the audience.

Yum.

Go.

I don't know if you can hear all of that.

Okay now I'll just close these babies up, like, you know, schmear them or anything.

No, no, no, it'll all come out and look how they fit together nicely.

Like my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Now, here's here's the tricky part.

A little bit tricky.

Anyway, it's a and it's a little bit messy.

I got, you know.

Well what good cooking is it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going to dip this in here an I don't want it to stay forever.

I just want to dip it, but I want to make sure that the sides get wet as well as the, I mean, the, you know, the perimeter of the edges, as both as well as both sides.

But I'm not going to leave it in there to soak this up.

I'm just going to put it into the, cornflakes and then, they'll stick right to that.

I want to get this flipped over now.

Well.

Boom.

Okay.

Yeah.

Now that's not so hard.

No, it's not that messy.

Well, it will be by the time we get to the fifth one.

Okay.

Now I want to make sure I get them on the sides and and everywhere.

And then I've got a griddle going over here.

I feel the heat.

And I'm going to take a little bit of a little bit of butter and, you don't know the meaning of a little bit of butter.

There we go.

And I'm just going to make sure that I've coated it to the size of the bread.

Then I'm going to leave the the rest of the butter in the middle, and I'm going to put this right on there.

I want to make sure I get all the butter.

I think.

Yeah.

That's it.

Now you don't want to leave this at too high a temperature.

Because you want, you want it to cook through before the corn flakes burn.

So you put this at a fairly medium temperature.

And the reason why I've done it on a grill and a little griddle is that you can do, you know, three, 4 or 5 things at a time.

And they these once they have cooked and become, you know, nice and brown and cooked through, you can hold these in the oven or on a chafing dish.

And that way you can make up 16 or 8 of these 8 or 16 of these.

And they stay crunchy and they stay crunchy.

This is more than enough serving for one person.

You know this would that's it's two pieces of bread.

Yeah.

Well, to start with.

it's just like if you had a serving of French toast, that would be two pieces.

But this is, you know, one unit is one serving.

And, I guess I could just lay the other one in here, just, to try it out.

Get this one wet.

Here we go.

And this would be.

I mean, I think this would be a whole lot of fun at a, at a brunch to have.

This is sort of the the main thing for the brunch.

And then you can have fresh fruits and vegetables and, you know, some salads or whatever.

I'm going to use my hands just.

Okay, get these nice on there and I'll put one more pad of butter on the old griddle.

I have an enormous griddle at home.

I can put oh, six of these on.

Well, I'm good for eight, so.

Okay, so let's, make two batches Well we're going to let those cook.

Smell so good.

Yeah.

You get that smell.

Through the magic of whatever we call it here.

I have, a couple of these that we made up.

I think, they're browning.

Oh, wow.

Oh, look at that.

This would be.

I got to get, my spatula, here.

Oh, yeah.

I have a blueberry.

I don't know what's on the inside of this one.

I'm not that particular.

You asked me what my favorite is, but I will eat any preserved.

I'm assuming I'm tasting whatever you're about to pull off.

Yeah.

Of course.

And here, let us put this one down there like that.

And we have a knife and a fork.

I'm going to turn this down.

I think we'll, there and, let's, let's have a little taste, because this is the finished dish.

It is stuffed French toast.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

No no no no.

Would I insult you if we put some syrup on it?

Not at all.

That's why I brought it.

Let's put a little syrup.

You know, it's.

It was like salting food before you taste it.

But I just feel like Frenc toast absolutely requires syrup.

This, is a mixture of, regular syrup and pure maple syrup.

I find that pure maple syrup is a little bit too strong in flavor.

I agree with you.

And, and it's not viscous enough to hang on to the.

Well, that's sticky.

Yeah, that's the nature of a syrup bottle.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, is that pretty?

Wait a minute I want people to see the inside.

Yeah.

Do you see that?

Look at that.

Gorgeous.

I want to get you a nice piece to taste.

Make it a big one.

Well.

All right, there you go.

Here.

I'll let you, So sticky.

I'll let you taste that.

Oh, Chris, it's better than the Carolina coffee shop.

Yay.

Oh I feel so disloyal saying that.

And they thought the Yankees couldn't compete with their, So good.

Isn't that like a little bit of cheesecake right in the middle of your, French toast?

Just a perfect way to describe it.

Perfect.

And I love cheesecake.

All right, next time I go to Chapel Hill, you'll tell them they've been.

I tell them you've been outdone by a guy up in Pittsburgh.

Maybe it's because Nancy is from the South, and this is based on a southern recipe.

I don't know, but Nancy really liked this French toast.

Could you tell Nancy he's not very good at hiding her feelings?

And maybe that's why we get along so well.

Back when Nancy was still part of our programing department, there was another person in our department who loved to cook and was part of all the early cooking marathons.

That's Ginny Griffin.

Ginny moved to California with her husband, Jack, and their daughter Shay.

But we still keep in touch, and I still make this recipe that she made on our dessert show.

A simple and simply delicious streusel topped peach pie.

We're back in the QED kitchen.

And I'm so happy to have with us here.

Ginny, again, as you as you may recognize, Ginny Griffin from our program department and her husband, Jack.

Chris, you've come in from Moon Township, right?

We drove all the way in from the moon.

in order to make this, streusel top peach pie.

Is that what it's called?

That's right.

Okay, well, let's get started, because I, I had, a taste for this once.

Ginny was describing it to me.

Now, I really want to see how it gets together.

It's a very easy pie to make.

My mom used to bake a lot of pies around the holidays, and so I've sort of decided to try that myself.

And, learning how very easy crust to make.

You start with, a cup of flour, in a mixing bowl, obviously, when we did ps for pies, I realized that I need to spend time practicing different kinds of crusts because this there's all different kinds.

There's thousands of ways.

I was just thinking I was astounded when we did ps for pie.

There were so many recipes for pie crusted that, you know, will not go wrong.

And will be perfect every time.

And you'd think there'd only be a couple of ways.

Yeah.

You add a quarter teaspoon of salt to the flour.

Just a little bit.

Just a little bit of salt.

And a third of a cup of shortening.

Go right in there.

Put that away that's that shortening in, that comes, it comes in a stick.

You can Easier to measure and you don't Thats the best stuff.

What a great invention.

It's like, why didn't somebod come up with this ten years ago?

Because you used to.

You either displace water, try and do it that way.

Yeah.

Or you'd have to, like, get it into a cup.

It's just a mess.

And, and then you just take it and sort of mix it all up.

You get all the shortening covered up in the flour because it's kind of sticky at first.

Yeah.

So I like to use a regular fork to do that.

And then, once I get it sort of covered up, just take the pastry fork and just sort of chop away at it until you, get the flour to sort of a coarse state.

You know, it'll star to incorporate the shortening in and you'll see little lumps, the whole thing, all the flour, all incorporate into a lot of little lumps.

Right.

You sort of I think it's better to sort of spin the ball while you do it.

So you get all the flour and sort of stuck on the side of the ball to come down to it.

And then you do this for a few minutes.

Because I always thought it was so hard, I, it never occurred to me because I always hear about, oh, this pie crust was so hard I couldn't do it.

And Jack's like, I can show you how to do this.

It's not hard, you know?

You can do this now.

He's he's a better pie baker than I am.

I do better cookies than he does.

He does.

And cranberries and cranberries and anything made with cranberries.

Anything made with cranberries.

We have the division of labor here.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, we got cranberries.

We have to try it.

I do pies and chili.

That's about it.

Oh, your chili jack is unbelievable.

Jack, we have to have another chili program.

We did soups and stews and we had some people who sent in chili, but I think we may have to do a program just with chilies, because there are white chilies and red chilies and Jack is different from any other chili I ever had.

Because you do the no beans chili?

Right.

I don't put very many beans and I'll put a little bit of beans in, but I'm not big on beans.

Okay.

Well it's really mediate just like and really it's what I think of as a bowl of red.

That's Jack's recipe.

So we'll have to have you come on and do it.

If you are not into hot, if you're squeamish on on spices and then his chili is not for you, but.

Oh, well, you know.

Oh, it's not that hard.

Oh.

Anyway, that's, that's about the consistency you want to have the, okay.

The crust that and then at this point you had, anywhere from 2 to 4 tablespoons of ice cold water.

Okay.

And, you know, sort of depends on, you know, the humidity and things like that as to how much water you need to add.

After you do that, you gather it all together, you roll it out, and you end up with a pie shell that looks just like that.

Well, let me let me feel this.

Well, that is very flaky looking.

All right.

It's a it's a very, flaky pie dough.

This way you can, if you like it, particularly more flaky.

You can, substitute sugar, all the sugar in with the salt.

And that seems to make it even flakier.

Don't ask me why, but it just seems to like that seems to do that.

And then for the filling, you obviously, if you like to use fresh peaches, fresh peaches if you can, but it's not that time of year.

So, you can use canned peaches or, frozen peaches.

I think the canned peaches actually work better if you can get them.

They, and they come in more of a juice cane instead of a serve.

You can get the ones with the, they come in the juice as opposed to the serve.

It takes four cans of, the 15 ounce cans of peaches to drain those really well.

And then two, the peaches, you add, half a cup of powdered sugar and just sort of sprinkle on top.

A third of a cup of flour.

Yeah.

You got that.

Get that free in there.

And that just helps it to coagulate, just sort of binds it together.

Together.

Just throw it in there.

In there okay.

You dont sifted or anything.

You dont preset.

And then it calls for a half a teaspoon of cinnamon.

I just throw it in there.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm not big on measuring actually.

How that's why that that's how I make chili.

I don't measure anything.

And then that's the problem.

I've been trying to get your recipe over there is I'm going to give some you there is no recipe for that chili He doesnt have one!

Somebody makes it.

Come on.

You sort of just toss it all together and try to get everything all the peaches covered.

Kind of goopy.

Kind of goopy.

And this is the first part that I had ever seen that had powdered sugar.

Yeah.

In the filling instead of the regular granulated sugar.

What do you think the differences.

I don't know.

I don't know if it it melts easier or I think it's a sweetening agent.

Yeah.

I mean you know, I guess it sort of is a little bit nicer, smoother coating, I guess.

Yeah.

So then when you have them all all covered up like that, just pour them right into the shell.

They're all going to go in there?

They are all going to go in there.

It'll mound up.

You might need to make it a little higher in the center, but they'll all fit.

I'm a terrible judge of how much is in a bowl, and it's going to go into something else and get rid of that.

Got it.

I'm constantly, I'm ending up with things overflowing and having to get something else where it's just right and just sort of.

That was 4 15oz cans drained.

I wonder how many cups it ends up being in case you wanted to use fresh peaches.

I think it's about four cups.

It's.

Yeah, I think it is four cups or four cups fresh or frozen.

You can use the frozen fruit as well.

Okay, okay.

Get rid of that.

Okay.

So now we sort of set that aside for a second.

And we do the topping which is just a basic streusel topping.

We need three quarters cups of flour Lets see.

It's another thing there are there are so many variations on streusel topping.

You can you know, some have oatmeal in them, some have nuts in them.

This one has neither.

It's required to that we had a half a cup of brown sugar.

It should be kind of lumpy like that, because you want your streusel to have a sort of a mix of smaller pieces and bigger pieces.

Yeah.

Again, a half a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Ish ish.

And a third of a cup of butter.

One of my favorite ingredients.

Yeah, put the butter in there.

You just sort of toss that around in there and try to get the butter covered up.

Where did my pastry fork go?

So here's the pastry blender.

And you sort of just sort of mix it all together.

Trying things great.

And break it down with the pastry blender.

Break it down with the pastry blender.

Butter's get that butter nice and cold.

Yeah, I think it's supposed to be, Because otherwise it doesn't form the right little clusters.

If it's room temperature or if you can just easily cut it, then it turns into more of a dough and you want to have those.

You want to have it lumpy.

Yeah.

Sometimes lumpy is good, sometimes lumpy.

You can you can always, you know, reach in there and kind of push it around too.

Last resort and just stick your hands in and sort of crush it together.

And I think that was a motto of my family.

A long time motto.

To cook with your hands.

It's when all else fails, they're still the best utensil.

No, I meant lumpy is good.

Is good.

It was my Aunt Mamie's grav recipe was called Lumpy is Good.

And you just.

You mix that around for a little while and try and like I said, you don't want to make it all fine, like the crust, because you want some lumps and you want some finesse to sort of fill in on top.

Sort of keep doing that.

You didn't put any salt in there.

No salt in here.

Okay.

And we started I guess after we moved into the house we started cooking and started trying different things in tough in an apartmen and kitchen don't on themselves.

So we've discovered that the jack is very good at this, which is a bonus for me.

I'll go out if you know my mom comes out, we'll go out and go to a movie or go shopping or something, and we'll come back and.

It's more in the winter because in the summer we're out doing other things.

But when it gets to be this time of year and, and while cooking is such a great thing to do together, I think it's a it's a great hobby.

It's nice to I often go to a one of these cooking stores and go and buy some utensil and then make something.

Make something with it.

What is it?

I don't know, but I'm going to make something with it, to make with it.

That's that's pretty good.

Good.

Just give it a. and you just take it and sort of loosen it up a little bit and just sprinkle it across the top.

Well, that's easier than making a top for the pie.

Absolutely.

For me it is anyway, I mean experiment with to try to make a first my first lattice top pie.

What a for Thanksgiving.

Yeah it's not a good experience.

So we'll try it again sometime.

Well there again see there's a utensil for that right.

There is a I've seen it where you roll out your regular pie crust and then you put this template over it.

It's like a die cutter, and you just press down on it, and it cuts the circular, pie crust and cuts holes in it.

So that it looks like a lattice crust.

And then you just lift the crust up and put it on top of your pie.

None of that weaving, has to go on.

Okay.

I've made a nice mess here, and you should press it down.

You want to try and get it sort of tucked inside the the edge of the top of the of the crust.

Right.

And just around it off.

And you pop that in the oven.

A 375 oven for 40 to 45 minutes.

375?

I'm going to go put that in because we want to eat this later.

All right.

Well.

I'm going to put that in when we have a pop over.

Now the racks are in the wrong place.

Oh, there it is!

Television!

You have a finished pie.

And, try to make sure that the strudel browns pretty nicely on top.

Okay.

And then, it looks gorgeous.

Jack.

Well, well, let's taste it.

Go ahead.

You guys.

He usually make some.

All right, I'll carve i up.

Whipped cream to put on top.

Yeah.

It's really nice with with fresh whipped cream on top.

And you can substitute go in the refrigerator.

I think we have good news for that.

And you can substitute blueberries or, raspberries or even mixed blueberries in with the peaches or raspberries in with the peaches.

Because is interesting as you want to be.

I love peaches.

My wife does not love peaches, so I have to make this sometime.

When she's.

I'll make you one.

We'll make you if Laura is out of town.

I'm cutting this up like I'm working at a diner.

Okay, let's all have pieces.

Four pieces.

Yeah.

So Jack's from Philadelphia.

He knows all about the Melrose Diner.

I was there I was there in September.

Actually, taking Sharon to, to the airport in New York.

Okay.

Oops.

I lost a piece of the crust.

Oh.

That's okay.

All right.

You want to put a little blob of a you get a spoon?

Just use the, You got one.

There you go.

Oh, yeah.

We're blobbing.

Oh, yeah.

See, now, that's a piece of pie.

You.

This wouldn't be hurt by a blob of ice cream, you know, warm it up a little bit.

Okay, I got to test this with that.

Jack, you done good.

Thank you.

That's a wonderful, fresh and delicious, a pie.

And, I want to thank you for coming in.

For being brave enough to join us here in the QED kitchen.

We miss Ginny around here at WQED, and we look forward to her occasional visits.

Well, thanks for being with us today.

And as we always say, we do it for you, but we can't do it without you.

Keep watching.