Baked french toast is the perfect breakfast when you want a special dish but without getting up early to make it. This baked french toast sits in the fridge overnight until you are ready to bake it in the morning. It is the perfect Christmas morning breakfast.
In my head the perfect Christmas morning breakfast is a batch of fresh homemade cinnamon rolls coming out of the oven. The problem is that time wise, it just doesn’t work especially when little children are up hours earlier than normal. With the rush of Christmas Eve the night before, I just never get around to the rolls. I finally decided I needed something easier that I could prep the night before and just bake in the morning and baked french toast was the first thing that came to mind.
I’ve made several baked French toast recipes, but none of them have been this easy and this delicious! This recipe is based off one from Pioneer Woman, and she never, ever disappointing so I knew it would be stellar. I like to use a Challah bread for any baked French toast recipe so that’s what I normally use but any hardy bread will work. There is plenty of sugar in the recipe already so I did not serve it with any syrup. We ate this for two days and it warmed up beautifully in the toaster oven. I’m guessing it would freeze and re-heat really well.
Baked French Toast with Streusel Topping
Ingredients
- 1 loaf Challah, sourdough, French bread
- 8 whole eggs
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3/4 cups sugar
- 2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
- Topping
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup Sucanat or brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick cold butter, cut in to pieces
Instructions
- Grease 9x13 baking pan with butter.
- Tear bread into chunks and evenly distribute in the pan.
- In a large bowl, mix together, eggs, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla.
- Pour milk/egg mixture over the bread in the baking pan.
- Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- In a small bowl, cut together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.
- Store in covered container or bag until ready to bake casserole.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Remove casserole from fridge and sprinkle crumb mixture over the top.
- Bake for 45 minutes for a softer, more bread pudding texture.
- Bake 1 hour or more for a firmer, less liquid texture.