Oven French Toast

This is a recipe that one of my sisters first made to bring to a family brunch many years ago. It was an instant hit, and I started making it for my own family. What I love about this recipe is that, besides being to-die-for delicious, it’s easily adaptable for cutting down the fat and calories, and still downright tasty.

For the stale French bread, I always look at the day old rack and get a loaf of that. I’ve used Italian bread for this too, if that’s all I could get. If you can’t get any that’s stale enough, cut it and lay them out to get drier the day before you make them.

So, you want to cut the French bread into 1” slices, and place them in a  greased 13X15”  baking dish.

Mix together the eggs with a wire whisk, then add the milk, half-and-half , and vanilla. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace, mixing well. If you don’t have mace on hand, just add a little more nutmeg and cinnamon. I’ve made it with mace and without, and it’s good no matter what.

Pour the mixture over the bread slices in the pan. Cover and set aside overnight.

Before baking, you need to make the topping. Chop the nuts. You want them to be smallish. I’ve made this dish using walnuts and using pecans, but since I like the taste of pecans more, I tend to use them more.

Mix together the softened butter, brown sugar, Karo syrup, and nuts.

Spread the topping on top of the soaked slices of French bread. You might need to use a rubber spatula.

Bake at 350° for about 50 minutes. You can tell it’s done by how brown and bubbly it will be, and also by inserting a knife in the middle. If it comes out without any egg mixture, it’s done. Keep in mind that the knife will have some of the topping on it, but that will be brown. If you don’t have any yellowish egg mixture, it’s done.

You can serve this with a little maple syrup on it if you‘d like, but believe me, it’s plenty sweet without it. My family doesn’t bother with the maple syrup. Enjoy! ~TMMF

                                          Oven French Toast                  Topping

              1 loaf  stale French bread                  ¾ c. butter, softened

                  8 large eggs                            1 1/3 c. brown    sugar

                                          2 c. milk                                 3 Tbl. Karo
                                          2 c. half and half                      1 1/3 c. walnuts or pecans
                                          2 tsp. vanilla
                                         ½ tsp. nutmeg
                                          1 tsp. cinnamon
                                         ½ tsp. mace