French Toast Casserole

We woke up this morning to news coverage of tornado damage throughout the St. Louis area, some of it very very close to our house. We are fine and we have power and we are extremely grateful this morning to have suffered nothing but a couple of hours sitting in the basement with overly wound-up children. There are neighborhoods nearby that were destroyed. If you want to help, here's the link to the local chapter of the American Red Cross.

My french toast casserole recipe has no relation to the tornadoes, and is symbolic of nothing. It was inspired by my having half a loaf of cinnamon bread in the fridge that was bordering on two weeks old, and a package of sausage that needed cooking.

Ingredients

• 8 slices Pepperidge Farm cinnamon swirl bread
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp butter

Directions

Heat the oven to 450. Arrange the bread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake about 10 minutes until toasted.
1. In a small bowl, stir the pecans, brown sugar and oatmeal to make a struesel topping. Cut in the butter until the the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
2. Cut the toasted bread into about 1" squares and put in a 1.5 quart casserole dish.
3. Lower the oven temperature to 375.
4. Whisk milk, eggs, and vanilla. Pour over the bread and stir briefly so that all of the bread absorbs some of the milk mixture.
5. Sprinkle the struesel over the top of the bread.
6. Bake 30 minutes.

Snow Day Food: Cinnamon Bread French Toast

When you know that a snow day is coming, then you can plan ahead. By buying cinnamon swirl bread specifically for french toast.

Ingredients

• Cinnamon swirl bread (I bought Peppridge Farm brand, without raisins)*
• 6 Tbsp butter (I use salted butter, but lower the amount of salt I add later.)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon (I like Penzey's cinnamon. I used a combination of their Vietnamese Extra Fancy, Cassia, and Ceylon.)*
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup flour

Directions

1. Lightly toast the bread in a 200 degree oven or a toaster. You just want to dry it, not brown it. No, I didn't set it out on the counter overnight (we have cats) or wait for it to go stale. 
2. Whisk everything  minus the bread together in a bowl and pour into a flat dish. I used an 8" square baking pan.
3. Heat your griddle on the pancake setting or a non-stick frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. I use about 375 on my current griddle, but my previous one needed 325 for the same effect, so YMMV.
4. Spray the hot griddle with butter-flavor spray or melt actual butter on it. My griddle needed almost nothing.
5. Dip both sides of each piece of bread into the egg/milk/flour mixture and cook on the hot griddle. Don't soak them for too long or they will fall apart :)
6. Once the bottom of each piece of bread is lightly browned, flip and cook the other side.
7. Cut the slices diagonally into triangles and serve. I had enough milk for about 9 or 10 slices.

I don't much care for syrup on french toast, so I sprinkled mine with powdered sugar. Some toasted pecans would have been really good here too.


*Notes, yes, I'm brand-dropping here. I haven't ruled out accepting ads or freebies or money for promoting items. But I haven't yet, so today's brand-drops are all about yummy french toast