Cinnamon toast french toast:
The only brunch I’ve ever hosted that left I me downright regretful was the one on a New Year’s Day when I decided I would make French toast. In my friends trickled, one at a time, but I could do little more than wave hello, because I was chained to the stove, dipping, flipping, frying, and then dipping and flipping and frying some more. This was no way to ring in the new year.
Shortly after that, I started baking French toast in a casserole dish, and I’ve never looked back. Not only do you not need to fry individual slices of custard-soaked bread, you don’t really need to do anything the morning of a brunch besides preheat your oven and slide in the tray you prepared the previous night, before you went out to celebrate. Even better, you can make the french-toast casserole as thick and deep and decadent as you please-on the stove, it’s hard to get the centers of thicker slices to set in the oven, they always do.
I came late to cinnamon toast-buttery toast, thickly coated with cinnamon sugar and broiled until it becomes just caramelized enough that the heavens open up. I could blame my parents,
I could blame my Yankee upbringing, I could blame the fact that I don’t think I ever saw white bread in my parents’ house growing up. Or I could just do my best to make up for lost time. This recipe does its best, and it feeds a crowd. I routinely question why I bother making anything else for breakfast.
yield: serves 8:
l tablespoon ground cinnamon.
1/2 cup (IOO grams) sugar.
I-pound loaf (about 455 grams or I6 slices) white sandwich bread.
8 tablespoons (I IS grams or I stick) unsalted butter, softened.
3 cups (7l0 ml) whole milk.
6 large eggs.
1/4 teaspoon tabIe salt.
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract.
Maple syrup, yogurt, and/or berries (optional, to serve) make cinnamon toast Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Whisk the cinnamon and sugar together in a small dish. Line two large baking sheets with foil. Place the bread slices on the baking sheets in one layer. Spread each slice of bread with 1 teaspoon of butter, then sprinkle each slice with 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Toast the trays of bread in the oven until the bread is golden, and until the cinnamon sugar makes a caramelized crunch on top, about 7 to 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees, and let the toast cool slightly.
make casserole Generously butter a 9-by-13inch baking dish. [You might have a little butter left over, but I wanted to build in some leeway in case, understandably, you weren’t buttering your bread with precise teaspoon measurements).
Cut two slices of the cinnamon toast in half horizontally and set aside.
Arrange the baking dish so that the longer side is horizontal to you on the counter. Place the bottom half of a divided slice of cinnamon toast in the upper left-hand corner, cut side facing left. Arrange your first full slice of cinnamon toast on top of it, so that the upper crust of the slice meets the left side of the pan. Arrange six more slices across the top of the pan, crusts in the same direction, overlapping each slightly. Finish with the top of a divided slice of toast.
Repeat across the bottom of the pan, with the toasts facing the opposite direction, starting and tinishing with your second divided slice of toast.
Whisk the milk, eggs, salt, and vanilla in a medium bowl, and pour evenly over cinnamon toast in baking dish. Let sit for 15 minutes so that the custard absorbs a bit.
Before baking, if you’ve got any extra cinnamon sugar (you’ll likely have a tablespoon or two), sprinkle it over the French toast. Bake for 30 minutes, until puffed and golden and until no liquid seeps out of the toasts when they are nudged about in the pan. Cut into squares and serve plain, with maple syrup, or with a dollop of plain yogurt and fresh berries.
DO ahead You can prepare the dish up to the point where you add the custard, cover it with plastic, and rest it in the fridge overnight. Bake it directly from the fridge in the morning, just adding a few minutes to the baking time.
