Overnight Baked French Toast

This is my first recipe post and surprisingly it's not a dinner recipe. Although, I should note that we frequently do have breakfast for dinner, however we have never had this for dinner. I have searched a long time for the perfect baked french toast recipe that can be made the night before, so I can actually sit down and eat with everyone instead of standing in front of the stove cooking. I stumbled across this on Pinterest about a year and a half ago. It's pretty much exactly what I had been looking for - maybe even better. It makes a lot, but that's ok because it tastes even better heated up the next day. I enjoy this with syrup too, but it's awfully sweet on its own and tastes great with berries.

ED helping chop up bread.

I had bought a loaf of the bread to make this back around Thanksgiving, but over that weekend, we never got around to making it. I had stuck the bread in the freezer, and I thought it would be a great breakfast to wrap up the end of Christmas vacation. On Friday night while the kids took turns taking baths, I had them each help me with different parts of putting this together.

EA helping with the topping

It's that easy and doesn't require any crazy ingredients - bread, eggs, cream, milk, vanilla and sugar for the base. The topping has flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and butter. It's perfect for when you have company or just because!









Baked French Toast

Ingredients:
1 loaf sourdough bread (I used Pepperidge Farm, 1.5 pound loaf)
8 eggs
2 cups milk (I used skim)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces (1/4 lb.)

Ingredients for base - minus the bread.

1. Lightly mist a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.  Chop bread into bite-size chunks and place evenly in the pan. You can tear, but I find using a knife is much faster.
2.  Mix together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla.  Pour evenly over bread.  Cover tightly and store in the fridge overnight.
3.  In a medium bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until it all looks nice and crumbly.  Place in a ziploc bag and put in fridge.
4.  When ready to bake, take pan and bag out of fridge.  Remove wrap and evenly sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top.  Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees (or 45 minutes if you like it more soft and pudding-like). Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Ready for the oven!

This batch was particularly good and our family of 4 ate it all over the course of two days! The first day we served with raspberries and the next day we had blueberries and blackberries. We simply zapped pieces in the microwave on the second day before serving. Whipping cream would be a good option as would a dusting of powdered sugar.

Sources: This recipe was slightly adapted from here.

What's your favorite make ahead breakfast? Thanks for reading and happy cooking!