BAKED Sunday Morning: Baked French Toast

What a perfect Sunday morning breakfast! And, it couldn't be easier to put together. The hardest part was going to the store and getting the bread. I really wanted to try Challah bread for this recipe since we had never tasted it before and Whole Foods carries Challah made from a local bakery. They also had a golden raisin version which I thought would be perfect for french toast. What's great about this recipe is that you assemble it the night before, refrigerate it, and the next morning you add the nuts and bake it for 40 minutes. I used pecans instead of almonds and grated some fresh nutmeg on top before putting it into the oven.

I also substituted eggnog for the milk called for in the recipe, but still used 1 cup of half-and-half. I pretty much put eggnog in everything this time of year, so I thought it would be a good seasonal substitution. 

When you take it out of the oven, you have a lovely golden brown french toast with the custard bubbling up. I don't think I'll go back to making french toast one or two slices at a time with a griddle on the stove top. I also think this would make a perfect breakfast when you have company because you can pop it in the oven when everyone is asleep and they can wake up to the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg. 

The recipe suggests making a raspberry syrup or you can use any other fruit, but I just wanted to use maple syrup because that's what we prefer on our pancakes and french toast. I think I would like to try it with fruit syrup another time, but with it being so cold and windy out -  I heated the maple syrup before pouring it over the french toast and with the french toast still warm from the oven it just warmed us up from the inside out.

The result was layers of bread and raisins with eggnog custard. The maple syrup gave it just the right amount of sweetness and the pecans along with the crispy brown crust gave it the crunchy texture that was so satisfying. The cinnamon with the raisin challah was a perfect combination in this recipe. Yep, I don't think I'll ever go back to the stovetop method of making french toast. Visit BAKED Sunday Mornings to see how the rest of the group make their french toast and you can also get the recipe on the site.