Bread Pudding French Toast

I hope you guys had a great Memorial Day weekend! I just got back from a beautiful trip to Sonoma, California, which I'm going to do a whole wrap-up of food-and-drink-wise, but until then, I give you Matt's birthday breakfast: bread pudding French toast and bacon. Try it! It was delicious—both on the first day and then again on the second, heated up and sprinkled with some granulated sugar. 

Kenny Shopsin's version:

our version:

Bread Pudding French Toast  via Kenny Shopsin's Eat Me
6 extra-large eggs
¼ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon Fox's U-bet Vanilla Syrup or 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract. (I would recommend using the full teaspoon of vanilla extract.)
1 foot of baguette, roughly chopped into chunks (about 1¼ inches)
Peanut oil for the griddle
Butter for the griddle and for serving
Warm Grade B maple syrup for serving

NOTE: The below is straight from the book/Kenny. Enjoy!
Whisk the eggs, cream, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add the bread chunks and use your fingers to macerate the chunks so you have atomic bread particles in with the egg. Continue adding the bread and macerating it, a handful at a time, until you have added it all. Prepare the griddle according to The Art of Griddling, dump the bread chunks on the griddle, and then pour the eggy stuff left in the bowl over the chunks, Leave it all to cook for 2 minutes to set. Take a large spatula, slide it under the bread-egg mound, and turn the thing over en masse, leaving it as intact as you can. Cook for a minute on the other side and then break it up with the spatula and toss the pieces around so the edges get cooked a bit. Get a wide-mouthed bowl (I put a little spinach in it because I like the color) and scoop the whole mess into the bowl. (I use a French fry scoop for this, but since you probably don't own one, use whatever you feel will work best.) Serve with butter and warm maple syrup.