Place metal bowl and whisk in freezer for 5 minutes (you can start the strawberry sauce while you wait).
Add heavy whipping cream to the bowl and beat until cream starts to form soft peaks (do not over beat or you will make butter), about 4-5 minutes. Add cream cheese and continue to beat until well incorporated, about 2-3 minutes. Add confectionery sugar and almond extract, beating until stiff peaks form. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.
Strawberry Sauce
Put strawberries, water, lemon juice, and sugar into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Let simmer until strawberries start to break down and sugar is fully dissolved, about 5-7 minutes. In a small bowl mix cornstarch with 2 tbsp cold water. Add to strawberry mixture and let simmer until the liquid thickens to syrup consistency. Remove from heat.
Filling
Using a fine grater, zest about ¼ lemon in a small bowl. You can use a traditional zester and chop zest so you don't get long strings of zest in the filling and so the flavor is more evenly distributed in the filling.
Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Batter
Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl large enough to accommodate 2 slices of Texas toast.
Let's Put It Together!
Line up all 12 sliced of Texas toast. Spread ½ ounce of filling on one side of each slice. Add 1-2 tbsp of strawberry sauce (depending on personal preference) on 6 slices of the bread, spreading evenly. Top with bread that only have cream cheese, creating a "sandwich". Repeat until you have 6 complete sandwiches.
Add butter in a griddle and heat on medium high (depending on how big your griddle is, you may have to cook the french toast in batches, so you may not need to use all the butter at once). Dip bread into batter, making sure that you have covered all the bread. This should only take a few seconds, you don't want to soak the bread in the batter or you will get soggy french toast.
Place bread on the griddle, allowing to brown before flipping, about 3-4 minutes. Once other side has browned, stand french toast up on it's sides so the edges will get crisp, about 15 seconds on each side. If you are cooking french toast in batches, you can transfer to a baking sheet and store in the oven at 225°F until ready to serve.
Top with remaining strawberry syrup, whipped cream, and toasted almonds. Enjoy!
Notes
You can swap out the strawberries for whatever fruit you want. Depending on what you pick you may want to swap out the almond extract in the whipped cream for vanilla if the favors will contrast.The filling, whipped cream, and strawberry sauce can be made a day ahead of time. Just let the filling and strawberry sauce come to room temperature for easy spreading when ready to prepare.