French Toast Casserole

I made French Bread the other day. In fact I made several loaves. It was wonderful but after 3 days in a row of french bread at lunch and dinner, I'd had enough. I still had a full loaf plus some to eat up.

I've been wanting to make a French Toast Casserole for some time. Usually we eat all the bread up but since I had the extra bread, I knew this was my opportunity.  I'd seen Paula Deen's recipe and The Pioneer Woman's. Both were basically the same until it came to the topping. I read several reviews, some said the bottom could get soggy, some said the top was dry.


I took the best of both recipes and made it my own. The only thing I will change next time is breaking all the bread into chunks. Trying to line up the egg soaked bread into the pan is messy business. Much easier to just dump it all in and spread it out.

French Toast Casserole

1 loaf french bread or other crusty bread
8 eggs
2 1/2 cups milk, half and half or heavy cream (or any combination of, I used 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup milk)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter
1 cup pecans

Slice bread into 1 inch slices or break into large bite sized chunks. In a large mixing bowl whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Place a few slices at a time in the egg mixture, flip to coat and let sit for a few minutes. Place soaked bread in a greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Repeat with remaining bread.

Pour any remaining egg mixture over top of bread. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate over night.

In a medium mixing bowl combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Cut in butter with 2 knives or a pastry blender. Your mixture will become paste-like. Stir in pecan. Place in a ziploc bag and refrigerate with casserole.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crumble topping over casserole, place in preheated oven and bake for 45-50 minutes, till bread showing is golden brown.

I'm linking up at a few of these great parties.