Overnight French Toast Bake is easy to put together, a great way to use up leftover bread, and a decadent breakfast for special occasions. Packed with flavor and layers of gooey bread, jam, and cream cheese this french toast bake is going to be a family favorite!
I love make-ahead anything, I mean most of my recipes can be made ahead! But breakfast can get a little tricky to make ahead, this overnight french toast is the answer! Not only is it just delicious, it is decadent enough for a special holiday treat.
The ingredients are pretty basic: jam, cream cheese, stale bread, and eggs! Aren’t those eggs pretty??olive egg colors I loooove the I’m getting these days.
And yes, this is homemade freezer jam! I used raspberry in this recipe, but really any berry jam would do just fine. Whatever your favorite it!
You’ll want to be sure and use a STALE loaf of bread. That is the key!! If you just use regular old sandwich bread, this overnight french toast bake will be much too mushy. If your loaf isn’t quite stale all the way through, just slice the pieces a bit early and leave them out to dry.
I cut my pieces of bread in half, they just fit better in the pan that way. The way you arrange your bread will depend on the shape of the loaf, to begin with.
Once the bread is prepped and in the baking pan, you will make the custard. Basically milk and eggs combined is a custard, easy, right? I add a little bit of vanilla extract and almond extract to make the flavor extra special but you can just use vanilla if you don’t have any almond extract available.
The custard just get’s poured over the bread and then you wait! You can bake this up as soon as 1 hour after pouring the custard over the bread, or you can let it set for up to 12. Don’t go longer than that, though. It will just start to fall apart.
ISN’T IT BEAUTIFUL?
I love when food is pretty and tasty. If the top starts to brown more than you’d like during baking, just lightly place a piece of foil over it. The tops of this bread is drier than I’d like, I 0nly let this set for 1 hour because I’m super good at planning and started making this a little late in the day.
I had to finish it and take pictures for you all before it got dark!! Ha. I’m so good at this.
And yes, this tasted even better than it looks. Not to sweet, not to tart, packed with berry and extract flavor – the perfect start to any morning.
Top it all off with some powdered sugar or syrup and you’re all set. Or do both, that’s what I always go for 🙂 . There you have it! Decadent overnight french toast bake!!
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Decadent Overnight French Toast Bake
Ingredients
- 6 slices bread crusty bread, stale.
- 1/2 cup jam any kind!
- 4 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1 cup half and half or milk
- 3 tablespoons sugar plus extra for sprinkling
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Instructions
- Slice stale bread into 1 1/2 inch slices. Allow to dry, if necessary. You may need to cut the slices of bread in half, depending on pan size.
- Combine milk, 3 tablespoons sugar, eggs, vanilla, and almond extract and whisk together.
- Spread each slice of bread with cream cheese. Repeat with jam.
- In a greased loaf pan (9x5x3 or similar), stand up the bread slices in a row, wedging pieces in any extra space.
- Pour egg mixture evenly over the top of the bread.
- Allow to sit for at least an hour, up to 12.
- Sprinkle the top of the french toast bake with sugar.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. The baking time will vary depending on how wet you want the middle of the overnight french toast bake. If the top becomes brown before you want to take it out, lightly cover it with foil.
- Top with powdered sugar and/or syrup, optional.
Sammi Windley says
I’ve never thought to put jam in with french toast! Such a good idea