Easy Make Ahead French Toast
Howdy y'all. Welcome to The Recipe Box, by American Inheritance. As a single parent, my time usually ends up stretched between homeschooling a reluctant 7yr old in the morning, chasing him down when he's outside with the ducks & chickens, running the shop, and trying to keep up with the house. So when I find a recipe I can make in advance and eat on it all week, that’s an absolute godsend, especially if it’s a breakfast food. Because after all, if I've figured anything out over the last few years, its that a better breakfast makes for a better day.
So we're going to start with this french toast bake. It's simple and can be made ahead and thrown in the fridge, then thrown in the oven when you're ready. This is a versatile dish, and there's so much you can do to customize it and make it your own. But for the sake of keeping it simple, we're going to start with the basics.
Side note… When I made this I wasn’t thinking about it being posted as a recipe box post so I didn’t take many picture but the pictures I did take are here… I'll be sure to take more next time.
Here's what you're going to need:
For the Toast:
*Good Quality Butter.
*1/2 a loaf of crusty sourdough bread.
*4 eggs
*1cup Half and Half
*1/4cup Heavy Cream
*1/4cup sugar
*1/4cup Dark gold brown sugar
*1tbsp vanilla
For the Crumbly Top:
*1/2cup flour
*1/2cup firmly packed brown sugar
*1tsp cinnamon
*1/4tsp salt
*1 stick of high quality butter cubed
1.) This recipe starts the same as all good recipes. With butter, liberally grease a 9x9" pan with a good quality butter. We prefer Challenge Butter or Kerrygold. If you're cooking with a kiddo, have them start tearing up the loaf of bread and lining the baking pan with it. Try to layer them evenly.
In a second bowl, whisk together eggs, half and half, cream, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. (You can add cinnamon at this step if it tickles your fancy.) Once its good and blended you can pour it over the bread shrapnel.
This is a good stopping point if your making it ahead, just cover it tightly and store it in the fridge over night, then make the crumbly top and put it in the fridge too.
2.) Now for the crumbly top. (This is another fun step you can do with the kids, cause we all know they love a good mess.) Have them scrub up and give them the flour brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a separate bowl. Stir it all together with a fork them give them the cubed butter to blend into the dry mix until its got a pebbley texture. (If you don’t have any child labor you can always just use a pastry blender.) Now if you're not making it right now just throw it in a ziplock and put it in the fridge.
3.) When your ready to make to make it, preheat the oven to 350 and sprinkle the crumbly topping over the dish evenly. You have two choices here, you can bake it for around 45 minutes and achieve a great bread pudding like texture, or you can bake it for about an hour and it gets this great crispy french toast texture.
4.) When you're ready to serve it, just scoop out however much each person wants and top it with melted butter, maple syrup, powdered sugar, or whatever topping floats your boat.
There you go folks, its really that simple. (And seriously delicious.) Now if you have extra time on your hands and wanna really impress everyone throw some fried apples on there tossed into the crumb mixture. Or Maybe put a layer of your favorite pie filling between the layers. You can do a lot to make this a unique dish to fit your families taste so just play around with it and see what you get.