This Straightforward, Make-Forward French Toast Casserole Is the Greatest Option to Feed Your Household or a Crowd

Expert cooks hate working brunch service. I don’t blame them—I personally would not have to be churning out eggs, bacon, and pancakes for a ravenous, hungover crowd on a Saturday or Sunday morning. (As Anthony Bourdain famously wrote in his information Kitchen Confidential, “brunch is demoralizing to the extreme line prepare dinner dinner.”)

Making brunch throughout the comfort of my dwelling, nonetheless, is an entirely completely totally different state of affairs. I actually like feeding ravenous people—notably within the occasion that they’re these I actually like. Nonetheless, you will not uncover me making eggs to order, nor will you uncover me flipping pancakes one after the opposite. In its place when it’s time to sit all the best way right down to eat, you’ll uncover an already clear kitchen and a desk set with a baked French toast casserole merely current out of the oven, served alongside bowls of current berries, toasted nuts, and a jug of darkish amber maple syrup.

That’s the great thing about a baked French toast casserole: You presumably can soak the bread throughout the custard the evening time sooner than, and throughout the morning, all that’s left to do is pop it throughout the oven. The spot-on baked French toast recipe we’re sharing proper right here comes from our Birmingham, Alabama-based verify kitchen colleague Elizabeth Mervosh, who baked batches and batches of the casserole to land on a recipe for a younger, custardy casserole you can too make ahead. Be taught on for her recipe, along with suggestions on how one could make the simplest baked French toast casserole.

The Most interesting Bread for Baked French Toast Casserole

As our editorial director Daniel touched on in his quick-and-easy French toast recipe, French toast tastes best not when it’s made with stale bread nevertheless reasonably when it’s made with oven-dried bread: “There’s one factor about oven drying that dehydrates the bread whereas preserving its current fashion. Plus, it tends to ship the right textures: great crisp and toasty on the pores and skin, yielding (nevertheless not mushy) inside.” Proper right here, we take an internet web page out of his information by oven drying the bread in a 250ºF (121ºC) oven and flipping it halfway by way of, which ensures that each slice crisps evenly. We recommend using brioche or challah, which can be company nevertheless tender adequate to absorb the custard with out disintegrating. Stay away from crusty loaves, which take for for much longer to hydrate and soften.

Don’t Shy Away From the Vanilla and Spices

Vanilla extract, flooring nutmeg, and cinnamon give this baked French toast casserole a subtly sweet and warmth spiced bear in mind. Whereas that blend is delicious, you might as properly fiddle with completely totally different spices and mix-ins to change up the flavour profile. Add a contact of orange zest for brightness, or give the casserole autumnal aptitude by incorporating half a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. You would presumably even swirl apple butter or jam into the custard if you would like one factor additional fruit-forward, or swap out the granulated sugar for light or darkish brown sugar, which is ready to convey a satisfying molasses bear in mind to the casserole.

Dunk Your Bread throughout the Custard—Then Let It Sit

Many baked French toast casserole recipes have you ever ever pour custard over slices of bread in a baking dish, nevertheless with that method, we noticed that the custard didn’t on a regular basis take up evenly into the bread. The much more fixed method? Dunking the toasted bread into the custard mixture—merely as you will for regular French toast—which ensures that every inch of the bread was soaked. After you dip the bread, you’ll lay it out throughout the baking dish, then pour the remaining egg mixture over the sliced bread and let it sit throughout the fridge until successfully soaked, about an hour and a half. You presumably can bake it immediately after that soak, nevertheless when you want to make it ahead, you’ll let it sit throughout the fridge for as a lot as 12 hours sooner than baking it.

Prime With Melted Butter and Cinnamon Sugar

On account of the oven dries out the ground of the casserole as a result of it bakes, we decided to offset a number of of that dryness by brushing the cooked casserole with melted butter. We then prime the baked casserole with fragrant cinnamon sugar and broil it for numerous minutes, which produces a sweet and pleasantly crunchy crust that contrasts correctly with the tender, custardy casserole.

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