Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Stuffed French Toast

The first Set the Table class. Saturday, September 10th, 2016. Nine o'clock in the morning. The church kitchen at New Birth Missionary Baptist. Six girls in Dollar Tree aprons standing around a stainless steel counter looking at me like I was about to perform surgery.

Mama came. She came early, in fact — she was there at 8:30, sitting at the table in the fellowship hall, wearing her good wig and her reading glasses and the expression of a woman who has been waiting for this moment without knowing she was waiting for it. She looked at the kitchen and said, "This'll do." From Brenda Jackson, regarding a kitchen, that's a blessing.

We started with introductions. I told the girls: "This is not a cooking class. This is a life class that happens to take place in a kitchen." Destiny, who is fifteen and has the kind of confidence that comes from having survived things no fifteen-year-old should survive, said, "What's the difference?" I said, "The difference is that when you leave here, you're not just going to know how to crack an egg. You're going to know that you can crack an egg. And that matters more than you think."

We made scrambled eggs. Sounds simple. It's not, when you're teaching a sixteen-year-old who has never held a spatula. Monique — my student, the quiet one, the one who eats both breakfast and lunch at school — held the spatula like it was a foreign object. I put my hand over hers and we stirred together. She looked up at me with an expression I recognized because I see it in my office every day: the face of a child who is being shown something for the first time and can't believe someone cared enough to show them.

Mama took over for the cornbread. She sat on a stool (standing for an hour was too much) and directed the girls like a general. "More buttermilk. Not that much. You listening? Okay, now pour it in the skillet. Hold it steady. STEADY. You're not pouring concrete, baby, you're making cornbread." The girls were terrified of her and loved her simultaneously, which is the correct response to Brenda Jackson. When the cornbread came out of the oven, golden and perfect, Destiny said, "I made that?" and Mama said, "You did. Don't forget it."

We ate together. Six girls, my mother, and me, around a table in a church kitchen, eating scrambled eggs and cornbread at ten-thirty on a Saturday morning. Kendra, who is thirteen and hasn't spoken much all morning, took a bite of the cornbread she helped make and said, very quietly, "This is the first time I made something." She didn't mean the first time she made cornbread. She meant the first time she made anything. She meant the first time her hands produced something good. I looked at Mama across the table and Mama looked at me and we both knew, without saying it, that this was the point. This was always the point.

After the girls left, Mama and I cleaned the kitchen in silence. Then she said, "This is a good thing you're doing, Tamika." I said, "You helped." She said, "I know. That's why it's good." I drove her home and she fell asleep in the car, and I drove through Cascade Heights with my mother sleeping in the passenger seat and I thought: this is what I was supposed to build. Not just a cooking class. A table. A place where girls sit down and learn that they matter. Brenda built that table first, in her kitchen, for me. Now I'm building it again. Wider.

That Saturday morning taught me that the recipe is never really the point — the point is the moment a young person realizes her hands can make something good. When I teach a new session now, I love coming back to breakfast foods, because breakfast is honest: it’s warm, it’s forgiving, and it rewards courage. This Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Stuffed French Toast has become one of my favorite things to put in front of girls who have never cooked before — it feels like a treat, it smells like a Saturday, and every single time, someone takes the first bite and looks up exactly the way Monique looked up at me. That face is the whole reason I keep showing up.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 thick slices brioche or Texas toast bread
2 ripe bananas, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 large eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, for the skillet
Powdered sugar and maple syrup, for serving

Instructions

Make the filling. Spread a generous layer of peanut butter on one side of four bread slices. Press banana rounds evenly over the peanut butter, then scatter chocolate chips on top. Place the remaining four bread slices on top to form four sandwiches. Press gently to help them hold together.
Make the egg custard. In a wide, shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and granulated sugar until smooth and fully combined.
Soak the sandwiches. Working one at a time, dip each stuffed sandwich into the egg custard. Let it soak for about 20 seconds per side so the bread absorbs the custard without falling apart.
Cook the French toast. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Once the butter is foamy, add two stuffed sandwiches. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes per side, pressing down lightly with a spatula, until each side is deep golden brown and the chocolate inside has melted. Repeat with the remaining butter and sandwiches.
Serve warm. Dust with powdered sugar and serve immediately with maple syrup alongside. For extra richness, add a few additional chocolate chips on top right before serving so they melt slightly from the heat.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Stuffed French Toast — The Morning We Built Something That Mattered