Food Thursday: Crock Pot French Toast

Last week I was planning out my Easter brunch menu and remembered that I have a crock pot cookbook that talks about making all sorts of things in the crock pot. Things like desserts even and dressings. So, I decided to try and adapt a french toast casserole recipe to work in the crock pot and the result was so easy and made the house smell so good and tasted so yummy… we officially declare it a winner!

Crock Pot French Toast

1 loaf of french bread
10 eggs
3 cups of milk
1 TB vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup of sugar mixed with 1 tsp of cinnamon
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup crushed pecans and/or oatmeal for topping – optional

1. Slice the bread into inch thick slices.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla and salt.
3. Grease the entire inside of your crock pot well with Crisco. Sprinkle a tablespoon or two of the cinnamon sugar mix and half the brown sugar into the bottom. Put half the bread slices on top of the sugar. Pour half the egg mixture over the bread. Repeat the entire layer – cinnamon sugar, brown sugar, bread & the rest of the egg mixture. Smush the bread down a bit to make sure it’s soaking up the liquid. Sprinkle a little more cinnamon & sugar on top. Add your toppings if you want them.

ready to bake!

4. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. If there is still liquid in the crock pot, uncover and cook for another 30 minutes or until all liquid is soaked up.

Note on the greasing: sugar turns into a sticky mess when it heats up, do NOT skimp on the Crisco. I used butter instead and wasn’t very liberal with it… I had to soak & scrape a mess out of that crock pot. So please, slather that Crisco on!

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If you like this recipe, you should check out Version II. Easier clean up and my family likes this one better:
Crock Pot French Toast II.

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I love this idea of having breakfast ready when you wake up and it doesn’t heat up the whole kitchen so you can do it any time of year. Yum!

food thursday: french toast

A few weeks ago a friend of mine wanted to know if I had a good recipe for french toast that I could post on the site. I have to be honest, I don’t make french toast – I’ve got some killer french toast casseroles (at least one of which I know I’ve shared here before, use the search box… over there on the right), but real french toast? Not on my normal repetoire. However, I’m always up for a challenge! And this week was a good week for it. Matt was not home for dinner one night and one of the kids’ favorite treats when he’s not home is breakfast for dinner. This week? You guessed it, we made some serious french toast.

Before I share the recipe I have to make a note about the bread. I think thick (like 3/4 inch or so) slices of bread are important when it comes to french toast. I also think the type of bread you use is important. I like challah (an egg bread) but I couldn’t find it at our little grocery store this week. So I just got out the bread machine and made my own – here’s the recipe I found. I made it earlier in the day, sliced it and let it sit out to get a bit stale before dinner. Slightly stale bread, another key to good french toast. You can use whatever bread you like – sourdough, white bread, wheat bread – just cut it thick and let it get a little stale for best results. I for one, think this would be awesome with my pumpkin bread – I’m trying that some weekend soon.

On to the recipe!

Granola French Toast

6-8 slices of bread, 3/4 inch thick
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 TB brown sugar
3 cups granola, ground
2 TB butter

1. Whisk together the eggs thru brown sugar – go ahead, get the kids involved:

2. Place your crushed/ground granola on a plate. Note: How do you get ground granola? you can be all fancy and use a food processor or just put the granola in a baggie and let the kids whack away with a meat tenderizer (on the smooth side!). I think the latter is more fun:

3. Melt the 2 TB butter in a frying pan or griddle over medium heat. Soak a slice or two of bread in your egg mixture (depending on how much room you have in your pan) then coat each slice with granola on both sides. Cook for 5-6 minutes – you want it fluffy and golden, but you don’t want to burn the granola topping so pay attention.

4. Now eat it 🙂

It met with rave reviews at our house this week. By their reaction you would have thought I’d been keeping a secret from them their whole lives by not making this before. I think it’s a pretty flexible recipe and if you come up with a fun twist please let me know!