French Toast Casserole

 

We have managed another cultural experience, and solved a mystery while we were at it. The mystery was 'what was that dish they served at MOPS brunch', and the cultural experience was the French Toast Casserole. A local bakery gave out the recipe on their newsletter, being a breakfast you could make with minimal cooking. I mulled over it for a while, a bit intrigued by the ingredients, then took the plunge and made it.

Ingredients:
1 loaf bread, chopped into 1in cubes (about 10 cups) (recommended loaves included Cinnamon Chip, Apple Scrapple, normal white bread and Challah )
8 eggs
3 cups of milk
4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 tsp salt (optional)

Method:
Place bread cubes in a greased 13x19x2 in. baking dish. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla and salt. Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. Remove from the refrigerator 30 mins before baking. Dot casserole with 2T butter (cubed). Combine 2T sugar and 2t cinnamon and sprinkle over the top. Cover and bake at 350 for 45-50 mins or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes. Serve with your favourite syrup. Makes 12 scrumptious servings! ( I made the full recipe, but we are struggling to finish it, I recommend halving the recipe)

We ended up using a whole wheat fruit loaf, sort of - it had raisins (sultanas) and little cinnamon chips (compacted cinnamon?) and definitely sugar in it. So the end result was sort of sweet, but with eggs. We're sort of at a loss about when you could serve this. In the USA it is for brunch, but it seems a touch sweet to serve regularly. The sweetness makes me think it could be a slice for morning/afternoon tea, but then there is the egg element, and the serve with maple syrup element. We're looking at making it more savoury - ie, real proper french toast casserole - just eggs, milk and bread, and that way, it would be an easy dinner. Correct me if I'm wrong, but normally brunch in Aus is bacon and eggs based?!