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

Skilled cooks hate working brunch service. I don’t blame them—I personally wouldn’t need 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 e book Kitchen Confidential, “brunch is demoralizing to the intense line cook dinner.”)

Making brunch within the consolation of my house, nonetheless, is a completely completely different situation. I really like feeding ravenous individuals—particularly in the event that they’re those I like. Nonetheless, you’ll not discover me making eggs to order, nor will you discover me flipping pancakes one after the other. As a substitute when it is time to sit all the way down to eat, you’ll discover an already clear kitchen and a desk set with a baked French toast casserole simply recent out of the oven, served alongside bowls of recent berries, toasted nuts, and a jug of darkish amber maple syrup. 

That’s the fantastic thing about a baked French toast casserole: You may soak the bread within the custard the evening earlier than, and within the morning, all that’s left to do is pop it within the oven. The spot-on baked French toast recipe we’re sharing right here comes from our Birmingham, Alabama-based check kitchen colleague Elizabeth Mervosh, who baked batches and batches of the casserole to land on a recipe for a young, custardy casserole you can also make forward. Learn on for her recipe, together with recommendations on tips on how to make the easiest baked French toast casserole.

The Finest Bread for Baked French Toast Casserole

As our editorial director Daniel touched on in his quick-and-easy French toast recipe, French toast tastes greatest not when it’s made with stale bread however somewhat when it is made with oven-dried bread: “There’s one thing about oven drying that dehydrates the bread whereas preserving its recent style. Plus, it tends to ship the most effective textures: tremendous crisp and toasty on the skin, yielding (however not mushy) inside.” Right here, we take a web page out of his e book by oven drying the bread in a 250ºF (121ºC) oven and flipping it midway by means of, which ensures that every slice crisps evenly. We advocate utilizing brioche or challah, that are agency however tender sufficient to soak up the custard with out disintegrating. Keep away from crusty loaves, which take for much longer to hydrate and soften.

Do not Shy Away From the Vanilla and Spices

Vanilla extract, floor nutmeg, and cinnamon give this baked French toast casserole a subtly candy and heat spiced notice. Whereas that mix is scrumptious, you may as well mess around with completely different spices and mix-ins to modify 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 even swirl apple butter or jam into the custard if you need one thing extra fruit-forward, or swap out the granulated sugar for mild or darkish brown sugar, which is able to convey a pleasing molasses notice to the casserole. 

Dunk Your Bread within the Custard—Then Let It Sit

Many baked French toast casserole recipes have you ever pour custard over slices of bread in a baking dish, however with that methodology, we seen that the custard didn’t all the time take in evenly into the bread. The way more constant methodology? Dunking the toasted bread into the custard combination—simply as you’d for normal French toast—which ensures that each inch of the bread was soaked. After you dip the bread, you may lay it out within the baking dish, then pour the remaining egg combination over the sliced bread and let it sit within the fridge till effectively soaked, about an hour and a half. You may bake it instantly after that soak, however if you wish to make it forward, you possibly can let it sit within the fridge for as much as 12 hours earlier than baking it. 

Prime With Melted Butter and Cinnamon Sugar

As a result of the oven dries out the floor of the casserole because it bakes, we determined to offset a few of that dryness by brushing the cooked casserole with melted butter. We then high the baked casserole with aromatic cinnamon sugar and broil it for a number of minutes, which produces a candy and pleasantly crunchy crust that contrasts properly with the tender, custardy casserole.