In this article I will show you the best barefoot contessa baked French toast casserole recipe!
Barefoot Contessa’s baked french toast casserole is a tricky mixture of regular french toast and bread pudding. It is a thoughtful solution for cooking brunch or breakfast for your guests in real-time.
That unnerving feeling when you stand by the stove for an hour and bake the french toast piece by piece for others sitting at the table waiting… or serving them cold.
Well, now you can forget that nightmare of holiday mornings. Although this delicacy takes 60-70 minutes to bake, you may all enjoy it together rather than standing there alone.
I must warn you that this is not a weight-watchers dish, but it is simple to make and feeds a crowd. Bathing your bread in fruits, sugar, syrup, honey, milk, and eggs, then baking for hours leads to a soft but crunchy, wonderful breakfast.
It’s difficult to cook barefoot contessa baked french toast casserole?
This is one of the simplest breakfast dishes or desserts you can make. When you think of casseroles or French toast, you would assume they’re difficult to make, but they’re not.
This recipe is a lot easier to make than regular french toast. If you follow a few simple guidelines, it should make a perfect baked french toast casserole every time, and the smell is out of this world when it’s cooking.
Some use fresh bread or brioche, others use stale slices. Some serve it cold, others hot. You can even try savory ones, instead of sweet, and make a regular breakfast of them; just mix in some sausage and plenty of cheese with eggs and milk, and sprinkle with fresh herbs. You can’t really go wrong with it!
What ingredients do I need to make a perfect recipe?
Baked French Toast Casserole is just mixing a bread pudding with french toast.
So you need at least a loaf of bread, some eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, fruits, honey, or any other flavoring you prefer.
Some recipes include marmalade or mascarpone, maybe Nutella.
You can let your imagination go wild and create recipes that are more interesting than regular peachy-fruity-honey dishes. You will also need a casserole pan or regular oven pan.
Orange-Ginger Maple Syrup Barefoot contessa baked french toast casserole
Ingredients
- Orange Marmalade
- Maple Syrup
- 1 tbsp Ginger
- 1 big Bio orange
- 1 tbsp Orange peel
- 8 Eggs
- 250 ml Milk
- ½ cup Brown sugar
- ½ cup Butter
- 1 tbsp Vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp Ground cinnamon
- 8 thick Slices of stale brioche or bread (3/4 inch)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and put an oven pan filled with water in the bottom to make some steam.
- Grate the orange and save the peels for now. Remove as much of the white outer sections of the orange as possible since they are quite bitter.
- Cut it to small even cubes. Caramelize them in a frying pan with butter and brown sugar and milk for 10 minutes on medium heat.
- Take a casserole or oven pan, and put the bread or brioche slices in it side by side.
- Whisk the 8 eggs and blend with the ginger, orange peel, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon.
- Spread a thick layer of orange marmalade on each slice of bread, and pour all the ingredients over the slices of bread slowly, making sure it gets everywhere.
- Cover the pan with foil. Place it in the preheated, steamed oven and bake it for 60 minutes. Don’t open the oven for the first 45 minutes.
- A fine, fluffy egg layer will embrace your tasty bread, thus making a fantastic pudding-like but crunchy texture. You can serve it hot or cold and with maple syrup as you wish. I love to have a glass of cold milk on the side as well.
How to get a perfect taste
Baking this bread puddingy french toast is extremely easy. But nevertheless, make sure to always bake them in steam. You may either place a water-filled pan in the bottom of your oven and let it heat up before placing your casserole in to bake, or you can place one pan within a bigger one that is filled with water. The outcome will be the same.
Also, anytime you cook something in steam, make sure you don’t open the oven door for the first 2/3 of the baking time, hence letting it fluff up, especially eggs or Japanese cheesecakes.
Using fruits in your french toast casseroles is regular, but certain fruits are more bitter than others and require more added sugar.
Baking in steam and under foil is sometimes not enough to get a crunchy, bitey feeling on the bread. If you love a distinct caramelized finish, take off the foil for the last 20 minutes and let the top have some color.
Accompaniment tips for this recipe
This is a great dish for breakfast, brunch, or dessert, for a special occasion, or a lazy Sunday morning as well.
Everyone loves it, and the hassle is worth it many times. Also, if you have seasonal fresh fruits available, that is usually unbeatable, and you should definitely incorporate them. It’s important to properly whisk your eggs before pouring them on your french toasts, otherwise, they won’t be fluffy, despite the steam-baking.
It’s also worth noting, that anytime you see a recipe and want to make it pop, just add some extra eggs, and in this case milk. If you don’t give it enough milk, the slices of bread will be dry and hard to enjoy.
Some people prefer fresh bread for it, others love dry. But usually dry bread absorbs the moisture better, hence why we recommend using day-old ones. If you prefer a more puddingy texture, you can cut the bread into cubes, instead of slices. That leads to a more casserole-like dish.
So, do you already know how to make barefoot contessa baked French toast casserole recipe? If you still have any questions, feel free to watch the vídeo above or comment below!
Other recipes:
