Cinnamon baked French toast is one of those recipes you always want to keep in your back pocket. Hosting a holiday brunch? Feeding a load of hungry teens? Trying to impress distinguished house guests? Cinnamon baked French toast—it’s one of those breakfast casseroles for every crowd and every occasion. Plus you can assemble it the night before and slide it into your oven the next morning. Ta-da! Breakfast is served.
You can either make this a moist, bread pudding-like dish… or bake it a little longer for something crispier. You can also sprinkle on fruit before adding the crumb topping and even add chopped pecans to said crumb topping. Get creative! I like serving it with good, crispy bacon or breakfast sausage and a yummy fruit salad.
Why is my baked French toast soggy?
Your bread might have been too soft to begin with. I like to make mine with one of THE best breads for French toast: a crusty loaf of sourdough or French bread. It works even better if it’s a day old!
What is the trick to making good French toast?
The best French toast starts with a good custard. I use a mix of milk and heavy cream to make it taste extra rich. The second important component is the bread: It should be nice and crusty.
What is the most common mistake in making French toast?
Overdoing it… or underdoing it! You want your French toast to be crisp on the outside and soft on the inside (same goes for a French toast casserole). Just keep an eye on the heat: If it’s too high, you’ll over-brown the outside before the inside has a chance to cook. If the heat is too low, you won’t get that beautiful golden color on the outside and the great contrast in textures.
YIELDS:
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12 serving(s)
PREP TIME: 15 mins
COOK TIME: 1 hr
TOTAL TIME: 1 hr 15 mins
Ingredients
FOR THE FRENCH TOAST:
1 loaf crusty sourdough or French bread
8 whole eggs
2 c. whole milk
1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
3/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. vanilla extract
FOR THE TOPPING:
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. firmly-packed brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 pinch nutmeg (optional)
1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces
Fresh fruit (optional)
Directions
1Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with butter. Tear bread into chunks (or cut into cubes) and evenly distribute in the pan.
2Mix together eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla in a medium sized
bowl. Pour evenly over the bread. Cover tightly and store in the fridge
for several hours or overnight.
3Mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a separate bowl. Add
nutmeg if desired. Add butter pieces and cut them into the dry mixture
until the mixture resembles fine pebbles. Store in a zip-top bag in the
fridge.
4When you’re ready to bake the casserole, preheat oven to 350°. Remove
the casserole from the fridge and sprinkle the crumb mixture over the
top. (If you’re using fruit, sprinkle on before the crumb mixture.) Bake
for 45 minutes for a softer, more bread pudding-like texture. Bake 1
hour or more for a firmer, crispier texture.
5Scoop out individual portions. Top with butter and drizzle with maple syrup.
This is a scrumptious make-ahead breakfast casserole that’s so easy to
prepare, it should be illegal. Leave it plain as the recipe dictates, or
throw in blueberries or apple chunks to give it a little more
dimension. And what I love about this dish is that you can decrease the
cooking time a bit in order to result in a more moist bread pudding-like
dish… or bake it a little longer to make the final product more crispy
and “done.”
Perfect for guests, kids, foreign dignitaries, heads of state, dimwits, dillweeds… and me.
Here’s what you need—looks like a lot, but it’s all simple as can be. Sourdough (or other crusty) bread, eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, sugar, salt, cinnamon, flour, brown sugar… and butter.
Of course.
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Crack a buncha eggs in a big bowl…
Pour in the milk and the half-and-half.
Add vanilla…
And some sugar…
And whisk it all together. Set this aside for a minute.
Next up, generously butter the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch (ish) casserole pan.
Grab whatever bread you have (day old is best) and tear it into chunks. If you like things to have order, you can also cut the bread into 1-inch cubes.
But I like chunks.
Fill the baking pan with bread chunks.
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Then—you guessed it—just pour the egg/milk mixture all over the top.
And that’s all for now! Now you just need to cover it in plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate it till you need it—overnight is fine and dandy.
Prescription: Try to say “fine and dandy” at least once this week.
You can also make the topping ahead of time. Throw together flour, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon. You can also toss in some nutmeg, which makes it extra delicious.
Stir the mixture together with a fork…
Then throw in a bunch of butter, baby.
Butter, baby, butter, baby, butter, baby, butter.
Baby.
Use a pastry cutter to mix it all together. Keep going until it’s all mixed up and the butter has been broken down to tiny pebbles.
Then I just put it in a Ziploc bag and refrigerate it until I’m ready to cook the casserole. This thing is ultra easy, which is just fine and dandy with me.
My Grandma Helen used to say “fine and dandy.”
Oh, how I loved that woman. Best drop biscuits in the history of mankind, and I will never—ever, ever, ever, ever, ever—be able to duplicate them.
The next day (or a couple hours later, whatever your freaky schedule is) pull the casserole out of the fridge.
Sprinkle the crumbly mixture all over the top.
There’s a lot of it—but don’t worry, you’ll love it later.
Oh! And if you’re not the sister of someone whose head swells up when she eats even the tiniest particle of tree nut, you can certainly add finely chopped pecans to the crumb mixture on top. I’m just not in the habit of using nuts because of my sister’s little…uh…”problem.”
Don’t tell her I mentioned it here, okay?
She’s a little sensitive about her head swell.
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Next, just pop the sucker into the oven for at least 45 minutes. And this is important: You can customize the cooking time based on the ultimate consistency you prefer. If you’re a fan of bread pudding and like things to be a little softer and much more moist, bake it for the 45 minute range. If you like things to be a little drier and crispy, go for an hour or so. I love the moist, liquidy bread pudding texture…but Marlboro Man gets a little grossed out if it’s too soggy or if he’s watching a movie in which the actors spontaneously begin to sing for no reason at all.
But that’s another story for another time.
And here’s the loveliness!
Yummy for my big, fat, jiggly, happy tummy.
This piece is from the corner, so it’s a little drier and crispy looking—but trust me, the moist deliciousness is there.
Don’t let the fact that the topping is packed with butter discourage you from doing this.
And this. And thank you to my friends in Seattle who felt sorry for me and brought me bottles of pure maple syrup! It was a good deed you done did.
You will love this, guys. And you can add blueberries, apple chunks, peaches…whatever kind of fruit you’d like. Just sprinkle it over the soaked bread before you add the crumb topping.
