French Toast Bake

If you bake this in a mini cast iron dish it makes it fancier.

Fun Fact: One of the earliest versions of French toast can be traced back to the Roman Empire.

This dish was created during one of those mornings when I woke up and decided I wanted to eat dessert for breakfast – and because I’m an adult, no one could tell me not to. Also me being lazy played a big role in this so I used whatever I had laying around, including some stale brioche buns, which actually helped absorb the custard mixture so lets just pretend I did it on purpose. Also because I put berries on this, this counts as a healthy fruit dish.

I made this in a mini 3″ cast iron pan, so that’s what the measurements are based on. If you have a larger pan, feel free to scale up the recipe. Remember to scale up by pan area, not just diameter. Yeah, sorry, you have to do some math to make this dish. Additionally, I think a lot of different flavor combinations would be great to try so feel free to experiment.

Tips and tricks:

  • Stale bread is great to use as it will soak up the custard better and maintain some structure. Its a great way to use up some bread that might be too hard to eat normally.
  • The toppings are pretty open – feel free to use whatever you have around. Lemon + blueberries is a good combo but any fresh or frozen fruit would work great.

Ingredients

  • 2 buns (brioche, kaiser, etc.) or equivalent amount of bread
  • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Sugar
  • Salt
  • Nutmeg or cinnamon (optional)
  • Lemon- Blueberry Compote:
    • Blueberries (fresh or frozen, thawed and drained)
    • Lemon juice
    • Lemon Zest
    • Sugar or Honey
    • Nutmeg
  • Topping:
    • Greek Yogurt
    • Honey
    • Lemon Zest
    • Mint

Get Cooking

  1. This recipe is what I used to bake in a 3″ cast iron skillet. Preheat the oven to 375F.
  2. Mix the ingredients for your fruit compote. Adjust to taste and let sit while you prepare the rest of the dish.
  3. Whisk the milk, eggs, sugar, and a small pinch of salt. Add nutmeg or cinnamon (optional). Cut the bread into small cubes and mix into the custard. Let it soak for a few minutes and make sure all the bread is saturated, make additional custard if needed.
  4. In your small cast iron or cooking dish, heat it up on the stove over medium heat. Place in a knob of butter and let it melt. Put in the bread-custard mixture and let it brown slightly on the bottom, about 5ish minutes.
  5. Place a few blueberries and small pats of butter on top and place in the oven for 25-35 minutes or until browned on top and cooked through.
  6. Pull the pan out of the oven, place 1/3 of the blueberry compote on top, and then put back in the oven for ~ 5 minutes.
  7. Remove the French toast bake and top with the remaining compote and the greek yogurt topping. Additionally (optionally) top with lemon zest, honey drizzle, or mint.

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