French Toast Casserole

I just love French toast and love bread pudding, so I knew when I stumbled on this French toast casserole recipe years ago that I would like it.

I’ve made this a number of times, modifying the ingredients and preparation instructions. While the original recipe, and most French toast or bread pudding recipes, tell you to use French bread, I’ve found that you can use whatever bread you have on hand as long as it can be cut into cubes. I always seem to have some frozen bread that is a bit past its prime that will work – hamburger buns, hoagie rolls…I’ve even used pita bread with this recipe!

I don’t think I would try this with thin sandwich bread slices, but anything else will probably work.

We’ve got another winter storm hitting St. Louis today, so I thought I would post this in honor of the 3 grocery items that the stores sell out of every time snow is predicted – milk, eggs and bread. It doesn’t take much else to make this recipe…so it’s the perfect comfort food for a cold winter morning.

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French Toast Casserole:

Ingredients:

  • 5 cups bread cubes (French bread, buns, hoagie rolls or whatever you have on hand)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cup milk
  • 4 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • cinnamon sugar mixture

Directions:

French Toast casserole - bread cubes

If your bread is frozen and you have planned ahead, let the bread defrost naturally. If not, cut it into cubes while it is still frozen and then microwave a few seconds until the bread is just barely defrosted.

French Toast casserole - cubes in microwave

Next, beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl.

French Toast casserole - eggs

Then add the milk, sugar, vanilla and salt and mix it up well.

French Toast casserole - eggs and milk

Add the bread cubes to the bowl and push down all of the bread until it is all wet from the milk mixture.

French Toast casserole - bread in milk

Pour the mixture into an 8×8 baking dish or deep dish pie plate. Make sure you spray your dish first with cooking spray so the French toast doesn’t stick to the edges.

French Toast casserole - ready for oven

Sprinkle the bread with cinnamon sugar. The specs you see in this picture are actually cinnamon. I ran out of ground cinnamon and decided to make my own cinnamon from sticks.

French Toast casserole - full dish

Bake at 350° for 45 to 50 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. When you take it out of the oven it will be all puffed up. As it sits for a few minutes, it will deflate pretty quickly.

French Toast casserole - single serving

Give it about 5 minutes and it’s ready to serve.

French Toast casserole with pita bread

The first time I made this recipe was when my refrigerator broke. I needed a way to use up the frozen pita bread that had been sliced up to go with a dip and later tossed in the freezer. I wasn’t sure it it was going to work, but it actually turned out quite tasty even though I forgot to add the cinnamon sugar topping.

French toast casserole with pita bread and syrup

My favorite way to eat the French Toast Casserole is smothered in syrup. But it would also be good topped with fruit and some whipped cream.

French Toast Casserole -  cooked

Here’s a picture of another time I made the French Toast Casserole using frozen hamburger buns. I have yet to try it with French bread.

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