Baked French toast

For those who don’t enjoy standing over the stove making pancakes, omelettes, or French toast for more than two people (and let’s be honest, isn’t that all of us?), this is for you – baked French toast.

What a frittata is to an omelette, baked French toast is to individually-made stovetop French toast.  It all goes on a baking sheet, then into the oven, then voila!  Enough for a crowd, ready all at once.

We started with a recipe from a friend of my mother’s – soaking crusty bread in the egg mixture overnight – and added orange flavors, since it just so happened that we’d found a crusty loaf of orange bread (made with a generous amount of candied orange peel in the dough) at Eataly.

The eggy mixture really soaks into the bread, so it’s almost like a healthy bread pudding.  The orange bread made it especially delicious (hats off to Eataly), but it would work with any of those raisin-walnut, cranberry-pecan type loaves just as well.

And best of all, it’s super easy to just pop in the oven in the morning.

My mom’s baked French toast

5 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp Grand Marnier
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp maple syrup
~Half a loaf of crusty bread, in 1/2 inch slices
Optional: orange zest

Beat eggs in large bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix.

Butter 9×13″ Pyrex dish, then place bread in one uniform layer (cut/tear pieces to fit).  Pour egg mixture over, cover with foil, and let rest overnight in the fridge.

In the morning, preheat oven to 350º.  Bake French toast, covered, for 45-60 minutes, until eggy bread is set in the middle.

Serves 4