Vegan French Toast

Yawn! It’s only 8:15 in the morning and I’ve already gone to the gym (Body Pump!), read a chapter of Wuthering Heights, given Sean a wake-up call, and created a protein pancake recipe! I feel like I should be tired, but I’m refreshed and ready to go!

Body Pump was awesome, as usual. It’s the perfect combination of good (tough!) choreography, a fantastic teacher (Teresa is awesome!) and super-motivated classmates. Everyone gives 100% effort. Interestingly, a ton of teachers and school board members take that 5:30 a.m. class before heading to school. I really admire their dedication and I hope I can keep workout out in the mornings once I’m back in class, too!

I upped my weights today for lunges as well as chest and back, and what really kept me going was the promise of breakfast when I got home. Pancakes were ready to be made and iced coffee was waiting in the fridge! The pancakes were good, but they need a bit of tweaking before I post the recipe.

Instead, I’ll start this sunny Thursday with another recent recipe of mine:

Vegan French Toast

Although I’m not entirely vegan (darn that yogurt…and chocolate…), I’ve been trying to find vegan alternatives to animal-based foods whenever I can. Since French Toast traditionally relies upon eggs, however, I never thought I’d successfully be able to veganize it. Using egg whites instead of whole eggs is a healthy option, but I wanted to go vegan-all-the-way!

My first thought was to use soft tofu, but we only had extra-firm in the fridge and I didn’t feel like messing with it at 7 in the morning. So here’s what I ended up with as my bread “marinade”:

Almond Breeze, Oats, Vanilla protein powder (don’t be fooled by the container – I used it to house a bit of soy protein powder!), my experimental tub of calorie-free chocolate dip and half banana, mashed.

All mixed up. Definitely more complex than simple eggs, but it tastes much better, too! I would eat this straight up any day. The proportions are really up to you. It’s all about creating your desired consistency. I used about 2 T of oats, 1/8 cup almond milk, 1/2 scoop protein powder, and a few spoonful’s of chocolate dip. Feel free to add Stevia and cinnamon to taste.

And that’s it! French toast, veganized! Dip your bread in the mixture and cook away!

In my family, we put a dollop of butter on each piece while it’s still warm, so that you get a melted butter pool. Then we scoop on heaps of powdered sugar! Definitely yummy, definitely great if you want to go into a sugar coma. I opted, instead, for melted Better’n Butter (are you sensing my obsession yet?) and microwaved frozen berries mixed with Truvia to great a nice berry glaze.