Baked French Toast

Baked French Toast

It's not my day to post a recipe, but I couldn't help sharing this absolutely delicious recipe with y'all! It. is. so. good.

I found it last night while searching for a make-ahead recipe for breakfast (I'm trying to get as much done the night before as possible so I can get all my exercising in early....which is a good thing cuz this ain't no diet-friendly recipe!). I started searching Pinterest for overnight breakfasts, but then thought, "Oooh, I bet P-Dub has something good on her site!" I was not disappointed.

I told my kids this morning that we were trying a new recipe from Pioneer Woman. My oldest daughter said, "Oh, then it'll be really good."

And it is.

Really good.

Like, make you wanna slap yo'self good.

Ingredients:
1 loaf sourdough bread (I used Pepperidge Farm)
8 eggs
2 cups milk (I used 1%)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces

1. Grease a 9x13 pan with butter. Tear bread into bite-size chunks and place evenly in the pan.
2. Mix together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. Pour evenly over bread. Cover tightly and store in the fridge for several hours (I put mine in overnight....it was about 12 hours).
3. In a medium bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until it all looks nice and crumbly (like small pebbles, according to P-Dub). Place in a ziploc bag and put in fridge.
4. When ready to bake, take pan and bag out of fridge. Remove wrap and evenly sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees (or 45 minutes if you like it more soft and pudding-like).

Notes:

• You can serve with syrup, but we made a quick glaze with powdered sugar and milk. Delish!
• If you don't have brown sugar, mix 1/2 Tbsp. molasses with 1/2 cup sugar until well blended.
• Like I said, you can bake it for less time if you like it softer, but I love how the top gets crispy when it's baked for an hour. The underneath part is still somewhat soft. One hour in my 350-oven was just right.
• The directions said to scoop out, but I wanted to be able to control the portions so I cut it into 12 servings (they were large, and this is rich, so you could serve other breakfast dishes and use this as more of a side dish and get 24 servings).

Makes 12 large servings