Baked Cinnamon French Toast Casserole

1. Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and greasing an square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Tear a large loaf of Hawaiian bread into bite sized pieces, or cut into squares with a sharp bread knife. The method is really a personal preference and won’t affect the outcome of the recipe.
3. Fill up the baking dish with the Hawaiian bread chunks.
4. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Pour this mixture over the chunks of Hawaiian Bread in the baking dish, stirring a bit and pressing down to get the bread to soak up the liquid.
5. In a small bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt with a fork, then cut in some cold butter with a pastry cutter or fork until it combines to resemble coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the sugar mixture evenly over the bread.
6. The French Toast bakes for about 50 minutes, or until the texture is to your liking.

FRENCH TOAST BAKE RECIPE NOTES

• My recipe calls for baking the french toast casserole for 50 minutes. I don’t like mushy french toast, so I tend to cook it a little longer. But if you want a more bread pudding-like consistency, try 40-45 minutes. The egg will be cooked, but the bread will have a more moist texture.
• Customize this recipe by adding fruit like berries or apples. I think pineapple would actually be pretty amazing.
• Another customization to try would be to add sweetened cream cheese as a layer. Add half of the bread to the pan, then pour half of the egg mixture on top. Add a few dollops of sweetened cream cheese (cream cheese blended with granulated or powdered sugar and a bit of milk), then finish off with the remaining bread and egg mixture.
• I used an 8″x 8″ pan for this recipe, which makes about 4-6 servings. It can easily be doubled for a 13″x 9″ pan to make 8-10 servings. This recipe also doesn’t call for preparing the night before, but you can certainly do that if you prefer. Just prepare it the night before, cover with plastic wrap or foil and stick it in the fridge overnight. Pop it in the preheated oven in the morning. Because it’s been chilled, you may need to extend the cooking time by 5-10 minutes.

WHAT GOES WITH BAKED FRENCH TOAST FOR BRUNCH?