Baguette French Toast

Years ago, I was asked to bring a breakfast casserole to the church Christmas breakfast. I couldn’t bring myself to follow the directive. An egg casserole seemed so boring. So I just did whatever I would want to eat. And it was this baguette french toast. Slices of baguette soaked in a creamy custard, topped with streusel and then baked until golden. Now I do it for my family on the weekends. Prep it the night before and then just pop it in the oven in the morning. It makes anytime of year feel special.

How to make baguette french toast

We start this recipe with a baguette. Nothing crazy fancy. Just what your grocery store has in the bakery. Slice it up into 1/2 inch-thick slices and then tuck it all into an 8×8 inch baking dish. If you need to cook for a crowd, you can do two baguettes and a 9×13 inch pan. You won’t be able to shove two whole baguettes into the pan, but that just means you get to snack on the leftover slices.

If you can plan ahead enough, let this baguette french toast sit in the fridge for a couple hours so the bread can soak up all the custard mixture. The longer the better. This is ideal to make the night before and then just pop it into the oven in the morning. Just don’t put the streusel topping on until you bake it. Keep that topping in a container in the fridge until you are ready to use it. If you were to put it on the baguette french toast overnight, it would soak up some of the custard and we want all of that to stay with the bread.

Baguette

My grocery store sells baguettes in a big basket up by the checkout stands. It is easy to grab on my way out. I know you can buy frozen baguettes. They are Pepperidge Farms and they are about half the size of regular baguettes. So buy two.

Eggs

Eggs are what makes this rich and custardy. That’s a word, right? You could whisk the custard mixture in a bowl, but it won’t break up all the egg whites. So I like to blend it so we get a truly smooth mixture.

Milk and heavy cream

You will find similar recipes that call for whole milk, but really, you can just use what you have. I use 2% milk. As for the cream, don’t skimp on that. That is where we get a rich, creamy texture

Honey

Honey, instead of granulated sugar, is going to give us a smooth texture. And I just have a ton of honey and I need to use it up.

Pure vanilla extract and cinnamon

These two ingredients will give great flavor to our baguette french toast. I have added nutmeg before, but I don’t love it. So I just stick with cinnamon. When I am feeling extra fancy, I add orange zest. Ina Garten does that with her pain perdu and it is excellent.

Streusel topping

We are doing a really simple pantry-staple streusel. Brown sugar, oats, flour, cinnamon and butter. My husband and I own a catering company and one of the regular dishes we make is a black and blueberry crumble. My husband will make huge amounts of the crumble topping and then freeze it. It makes it really easy to throw together big pans of our crumble. You can do that too. Double the streusel topping recipe and keep a bag of it in the freezer. There are so many ways to use it.

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