Holiday Baking- Baked French Toast Casserole

Christmas Morning!

Every Christmas morning my Mom makes Christmas Wife Saver.

Christmas Morning Wife Saver

You can find it in the Best of Bridge Series (if you can’t, let me know and I’ll get you the recipe).  Nothing is tastier than Wife Saver after you have been working up a sweat unwrapping your Christmas presents and arguing over whose turn it is to open first this round (yes my family must open presents in order!).

This year, I set out to find something that complimented my Mom’s signature dish.  She did the savoury, so of course I went for the sweet . . . Baked French Toast Casserole.  I have to thank my friend Janine (new name- London’s mom!) for inspiring me to search for a recipe of this sort.  Every time Janine joins her American relatives across the border, she is in charge of baking French Toast Casserole.  Since she just had a beautiful baby (London Ashley) I didn’t feel it was the time to ask her to dig into her recipe vault to find her tried and true tasty concoction!  After searching through my many favourite food sites, I settle on Baked French Toast Casserole with a praline topping.

Baked French Toast Casserole

Inspired from http://alyssastwobites.blogspot.com

Ingredients:
1 loaf of French bread (13 to 16 ounces)

8 large eggs

2 cups half-and-half

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Praline Topping:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions:

Slice French bread into 20 slices, 1-inch each.  Arrange slices in a generously buttered 9×13 inch flat baking dish in 2 rows, overlapping the slices.  In a large bowl, combine the eggs, half-and-half, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and beat with a rotary beater until blended but not too bubbly.  Pour mixture over the bread slices, making sure all is covered evenly with the milk-egg mixture.  Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread Praline Topping evenly over the bread and bake for 40 minutes, until puffed and lightly golden.

The original recipe says to serve with maple syrup, but I found that it was definitely sweet enough without it . . . honestly, it was almost too sweet (seriously . . . I know that it doesn’t sound believable!)