Baked French Toast Bread Pudding

One of my all time favorite company-worthy breakfast entrees that I like to make is Baked French Toast. It's essentially regular French toast but the bread is soaked in the egg and milk the night before and stored in the fridge until morning. It's then baked for about thirty minutes until it's a bit crispy on the edges of the bread. It's creaminess and buttery texture is always a sure fire hit.
The recipe I've always used is found here at Allrecipes.com. It includes a caramel sauce that I usually avoid because it always seems way too sweet for breakfast. Each time I make it, I can't help but think that the recipe was really more like a dessert than a breakfast, so when Stacie told me she wanted bread pudding a light bulb went off in my head. Could I use the Baked French Toast recipe to make a bread pudding? The answer is a big YES!

I had to tweak the recipe a bit. I sweetened the egg mixture, added more cinnamon, and used Challah bread instead of French. I also introduced raisins that I soaked first in a cup of warm water so they would plump up a bit. I wasn't sure how to cook it though. I was worried that the top and sides would cook too fast and leave the center raw so I cooked it very slowly in a water bath - over an hour.


All in all, it came out really well. I made my son and me individual portions. Considering how rich this is, it was the perfect serving size. The outcome was great! The texture was perfect - soft and moist on the inside and crispy and sweet on the top. My son really enjoyed this and he's not even a fan of bread pudding!

I'll post the recipe after I've made it a few more times. I ended up cooking it for about an hour, due my experimentation with the cooking. For now, here's the recipe for the fabulous Baked French Toast, courtesy of Allrecipes.com.

Stacie, I really hope this is what you had in mind. Happy Birthday!

Baked French Toast Bread Pudding
Yield: About 8 to 12

1 (1 pound) loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices
8 eggs
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange the slices of bread in the bottom. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

2. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Mix the bread pudding around, moving the wetter pieces to the top and set aside.

3. In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup; heat until bubbling. Pour over bread and egg mixture. Don't mix it in.

3. Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Let it cool completely if not overnight in the fridge if you can stand it. It will firm up a bit after it cools.