Baked French Toast

Breakfast for dinner is a favorite here. Perhaps that is because I love cooking up tasty breakfast food but I am not partial to early mornings. Here is a breakfast recipe which even I could use because it can be made the night before, refrigerated overnight and baked in the morning!

I had a package of King’s Hawaiian Sweet rolls in the freezer that I wanted to use up so I decided to make baked French toast. I wanted it to be rich so I tried for something between bread pudding and strata. This is pretty decadent, more like a dessert. But I topped ours with BlueberrySauce to make it more nutritious J

 

While this was made with Hawaiian sweet rolls you could use challah, brioche, French bread etc. Choose your baking dish wisely, it needs to be deep or wide but you don’t want this to be spread too thin in too big of a pan. I used a 9 by 9 pan that was over 3 inches deep. A little still spilled over so do put some foil below your pan.I think a 10 by 10 or larger would be better.

Baked French toast

One 12 oz. package of 12 Kings Hawaiian sweet rolls, or challah bread or brioche *

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk(whole or 2% )

1/2 cup half and half

½ cup brown sugar

3 TBSP maple syrup

2-3 tsp vanilla extract

Topping- ½ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, ¼ cup butter, softened slightly  (2/3 cup chopped pecans, optional)

*Bread is best a little stale- I had a frozen package of hawaiian rolls  which I let sit out for a few hours.

Prep an extra deep square pan of at least 9 “ or 10”  by 3 “ deep or deep round baking dish of 11 inches or more by greasing generously with butter.

If using hawaiian sweet rolls, remove from package but do not separate into pieces, Slice rectangle of rolls or loaf into ½ inch slices. They could also be torn into ½ - 1 inch pieces.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, half and half, sugar, syrup and vanilla.

Pour just a bit of mixture into bottom of pan. Arrange a layer of slices or chunks of bread and pour on a bit more of the egg, milk mixture. Add another layer of bread and then egg and then another if needed. Pour the last bit of egg over the top and then push bread into egg/milk mixture.

Let this sit in the refrigerator for about 30-40 minutes or up to 7 or 8 hours at most.  Press it down once more.

Cut together the topping ingredients (except nuts).   Sprinkle this mixture and nuts, if using, over the top.

Preheat oven to 350. Place a foil lined sheet or piece of foil on the rack below to catch any spills. Put the  baking dish in the oven. This does puff up quite a bit; it will deflate after removed from oven.

 Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until it is set, a knife or toothpick comes out clean and it is crispy on top.

 

Topping- My favorite thing to top this with is Blueberrysauce but other good choices are maple syrup or Ginger syrup .