Baked French Toast

Hello folks and welcome back to the All Things Southern kitchen! Everyone loves French Toast! However, making enough for the whole family and having everyone sit down to a hot plate at the same time can be daunting. Right? Right. The solution? Make my French Toast Casserole. You can do most of the work the night before and put the finishing touches on it the next morning. Here, I’ll show you how.

“Baked French Toast”

1 loaf French bread
8 eggs,
2 cups milk
1 cup half and half
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Dash of salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
8 ounces of cream cheese
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
*optional- you can top with pecan pieces before drizzling with syrup
Maple syrup for topping

We’ll begin by taking a load of French bread and chopping it up into bite-size pieces, that’s about 1-inch squares, and place them in a greased 9×13 inch casserole dish. Then we’ll take a large mixing bowl and whisk eight eggs with 2 cups of whole milk and one cup half and half, a couple teaspoons of vanilla extract and a dash of salt. We’ll place them in our casserole dish, pour the egg mixture across the top and let it thoroughly soak the bread.

Next, we’ll take an eight once block of cream cheese and spoon it a teaspoon at a time evenly across the bread, pushing the cream cheese down between the pieces. You should get about 16   teaspoonfuls. We’ll cover this with saran wrap and refrigerate it overnight. Guess what? Most of our work is done.

The next day, we’ll take about three tablespoons of butter and dot it over the top of our dish. Then we’ll stir our cinnamon and sugars together and sprinkle this over it, too. We’ll bake for about 45-50 minutes in a 350-degree oven. If your family likes nuts, toast a cup of pecan pieces in a bit of butter and sprinkle them across the top in the last few minutes of baking. You’ll want to let the dish stand a few minutes after baking to make sure all the delicious liquid soaks into the bread. We’ll dish up nice size servings and drizzle them with maple syrup that we’ve heated on the stove. YUM! That’s French Toast Casserole and it’s mighty good eating from the All Things Southern kitchen to yours~

Hugs, Shellie