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Yummy Weekday Breakfast Ideas (Hold the Cereal, Please)- Overnight Baked French Toast

Day 3

Hi everyone! We’re doing well with our no-cereal-breakfast-experiment week. Yesterday we had Cheese on Toast which all the kids really enjoyed. I thought since it’s Wednesday and it’s the middle of the week, and we all need a little pick-me-up, I’d treat everyone with a little something special. So, this morning we had Overnight Baked French Toast. No, the french toast is not baked overnight. Although, I think I have come across slow-cooker french toast in my travels…but that’s an experiment for another day. THIS overnight french toast is assembled the night before and sits in the fridge until the morning when you bake it and wake your family up with the wafting smells of cinnamon and brown sugar. Mmmm…..

Overnight Baked French Toast
Recipe adapted from Mommy’s Kitchen

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 small loaf brioche bread (I used pre-sliced)
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk

• Melt butter and pour in a casserole dish.
• Mix together brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg (you can add 1/2 cup of chopped nuts if you’d like. The girls don’t like them too much so I didn’t but you can bet I will when I make the grown-up version of this dish).
• Whisk eggs, milk & vanilla together.
• Layer bottom of pan with half the bread pieces.
• Sprinkle half brown sugar mix over the bread.
• Layer second half of bread.
• Pour egg mixture over the bread slices, making sure all are covered evenly.
• Sprinkle remaining brown sugar on top.
• Cover and refrigerate overnight.
• In the morning, remove from the refrigerator and cover with a new piece of foil.
• Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F and bake for 30 minutes.
• Uncover and bake 15 more minutes until the french toast bake is golden brown and set.
• If you’d like to go for the ultra-decadent option, pour some maple syrup on top and place back in the oven to caramelize for about 5-7 minutes. (I didn’t).

You can use any kind of bread in this recipe. Crusty breads work well, as do egg-based breads like challah and brioche. You could even use leftover hot dog or hamburger rolls.

The Verdict: Winner

I think it would be an understatement to say that this went down well. Let’s face it, the kids had dessert for breakfast! (This is more or less the same as bread pudding) They LOVED it! With 1 cup of brown sugar in the recipe, I was worried that it would be cloyingly sweet and I would hate it. I really can’t ‘do’ sweet foods first thing in the morning. But I was pleasantly surprised. The only tweak I would make (and this was also a surprising comment from my 6 1/2 year old) is to put less sugar on the top layer. Normally I would use a flat, square or rectangular baking dish for this type of recipe, but one wasn’t available today so I used a deeper, round dish and because of this, had 3 layers of bread instead of two. I probably didn’t divide the sugar exactly in half, so more of it ended up on top rather than evenly dispersed throughout. In fact, next time, I might use 1/2 cup in the middle of the layers and just 1/4 cup on top. You can always add syrup or icing/confectioner’s sugar on top when you serve it if you’d like it a little bit sweeter.

One of the best parts about having this for a weekday breakfast is that while it’s baking, you can be getting the kids ready for school, or having your shower, or whatever you need to do in the morning. You don’t have to stand over it watching it while it’s cooking, and you end with a really special treat for breakfast! Maybe this would be great on a Monday morning when you need that extra push to get going, or on a Thursday, when the week seems to be dragging, or….

It’s not low-fat, but it does include all the ingredients of a traditional breakfast: eggs, bread and milk. You can experiment with lower-fat options and see how it turns out. It’s a forgiving recipe. You could even add dried fruit and nuts to make it more interesting. Let me know in the comments if you try it out. I’d love to hear from you!

Join me tomorrow for Day 4 of Yummy Weekday Breakfast Ideas (Hold the Cereal, Please). We’ll be trying Egg & Bacon Hash.

See you then!