Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast

Hillsy and I stayed at the York Street House Bed & Breakfast for our mini honeymoon a couple of weeks ago and was served this decadent breakfast treat on our first morning. One bite and I knew I had to make it once I got home. I asked the owner for some tips and was surprised at how easy and simple it was to make.

Note: Bread - I thought she was going to say it was some fancy brioche, it was actually Shoprite's Maple & Cinnamon sliced bread! I ended up using Stop & Shop's (just as good)!

You'll need:
A package of Maple & Cinnamon Sliced Bread (4 slices per serving)
Cream Cheese Filling (large tub of whipped cream cheese + lemon zest)
Batter (6 whole eggs, 2 cups heavy cream, teaspoon vanilla extract, tbs sugar)
Blueberry Compote *optional
Powdered sugar, cinnamon *optional
Maple Syrup
Butter for frying

1. Combine eggs, heavy cream, vanilla extract and sugar. Set aside.
2. Mix zest of one lemon and whipped cream cheese.
3. Spread about 1-2 tbs of cream cheese mixture in the center of a slice of bread (try to stay in the middle so the filling doesn't end up oozing out of the "sandwich" when cooking) and top with another slice of bread. Gently press together. Repeat with the remaining bread slices.
4. Dip sandwich in the batter, making sure that all sides have absorbed the mixture (not too soggy though). Heat up butter in a pan (I used about 1/2 tbs for each one) and fry both sides (low-med heat) then try to sear the sides as well. *I dip the sandwiches one by one, right before frying them up as opposed to dipping the whole batch.
5. Cut each one in half (diagonally)

I simply cooked a pint of blueberries, sugar and butter for the "compote". Top the whole thing with compote, powdered sugar, cinnamon and maple syrup. Enjoy!