Imagine combining the finest ham and cheese sandwich and French toast you’ve ever tasted with flawlessly poached eggs on top. The poached egg yolks serve as the sauce, so you don’t need any Hollandaise.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 sandwiches |
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground allspice
- 4 thick slices day-old French bread
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 8 thin slices cooked ham
- 4 slices Cheddar cheese
- 4 slices Havarti cheese
- 8 poached eggs
- 2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives, or to taste
- 1 pinch kosher salt, or to taste
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Whisk 2 eggs, cream, white sugar, salt, 1 pinch cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and allspice together in a bowl until batter is thoroughly combined.
- Lay bread slices into batter, one at a time, and let bread absorb the mixture. Turn bread slices in batter until almost all batter has been absorbed, about 10 minutes.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and melt butter in the hot skillet. Cook bread slices in the hot butter until browned, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer French toast slices to a baking sheet.
- Lay ham slices into the hot skillet and cook until meat begins to brown, about 1 minute per side.
- To assemble, place a Cheddar cheese slice on a slice of French toast, top with 2 slices of ham, and lay a Havarti cheese slice over ham.
- Bake in the preheated oven until French toast pieces are no longer wet, the batter is set, and cheese has melted and begun to brown, about 20 minutes.
- Place sandwiches on serving plates and top each with 2 poached eggs. Season with kosher salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
- See Chef John’s technique to turn out perfectly poached eggs every time.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 651 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 26 g |
| Cholesterol | 572 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 38 g |
| Saturated Fat | 23 g |
| Sodium | 1475 mg |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Fat | 44 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I have been making this sort of thing for years. Same concept. I call mine poor man’s eggs Benedict. I use toast or toasted English muffin. Sliced cheese, any type that suits your fancy. Meat is what I call meat de jur. I look in the fridge and if I have ham, turkey, bacon, baloney, even sautéed hotdogs. As he said the runny yolk is your sauce. Always hits the spot.
Excellent! I know it’s a success when DH compliments the food more than once while eating it. I made some changes based on his preferences: Spam instead of ham, shredded mozzarella and cheddar. We had one over-easy fried egg apiece, and I forgot the chives. It was delicious. Most French toast is somewhat mushy, but the type of bread (I used Tuscany, which looked exactly like the French bread in the photo and video) plus the oven-baking dried it out just enough.
I personally would rather have Swiss cheese and hollandaise and make it super rich,.
Neither a Benedict, nor a monte Cristo. Each has their own classic flavor. This is a muddy mess.
Oh my gosh. I did not have great bread like you had but next time I will still delish!
Made it for mother’s day for my girlfriend. She loves poached eggs and often makes French toast for breakfast. She absolutely loved it. We both like spicy food so a little more cayenne would have been good. Even as is this recipe is awesome. I used 1 slice leftover ham from the ham I made yesterday and 1 slice of prosciutto instead of 2 slices of ham.
Husband loved it; I definitely will make it again. I didn’t have any cheddar, so I used Colby cheddar slices.
This is the best mixture of flavor! My taste buds were so happy. This is now a staple for me. I eat this multiple times a week. I can prepare it up until the egg and then refrigerate. I just take out the ‘sandwich’ when I want it and bake it for just a few minutes and it gets warm and doesn’t get soggy. As that is warming up in my conventional oven, I make the egg. My point is, this is soooo good I have to make a bunch so I can eat it all the time!! 🙂
My husband preferred the swiss cheddar cheese combo. Delicious either way in my opinion.
Used ingredients that I had available at home. Was great if you like yolked eggs! The eggs were the sauce. Topped with cayenne pepper and some green onion. Awesome!
This was really good, in spite of the fact that the name Benedict made me crave hollandaise sauce. I considered adding it but it’s already a ton of calories so I didn’t. Really liked the two cheeses. I am not usually a French toast fan, but the savoriness of the dish won me over.
Our family love it! It’s going to be a keeper for us!
My wife and I loved this. It was somewhat time consuming but not difficult. I did not have any heavy whipping cream so I used Half & Half instead and it worked just fine. Chef John is correct, you don’t need Hollandaise sauce. This was creamy, savory and delicious.
Love this recipe. It’s a winner. Made it for brunch today.
It was easy and delicious. Made it for Father’s Day breakfast. Family loved it.
This is a phenomenal recipe that my family absolutely loves. I have made it a few times for Mother’s day and they talk about it for days afterward. Only thing I do different is make my eggs over easy instead of poached. I served it with roasted fingerling potatoes and asparagus. I did have a hollandaise packet that I opted not to use.
This was fun! I made as directed, but to really keep the Monte Crisco portion front and center, I placed good strawberry jam in a small silver cups. Wow- I had 12 people and everyone raved… and gobbled it all up.!
Delicious! Absolutely perfect and a big hit.
My family loved it very indulgent
I loved this recipe! Not too sweet. A Monte made into benedict? Awesome! The only thing I did differently is that I used the microwave method to do the poached eggs. Easy peezy! Thanks Chef!
Maybe I needed hollandaise.