Overnight French Toast

Susie Mauzy traditionally made an “overnight French toast” casserole for her family to enjoy each Christmas morning. After her unexpected death in October, her friends and family realized that none of us had her special recipe and we hadn’t yet come across it in her recipe collection (think 200+ issues of her favorite cooking magazines to cull through) Since Susie did clip recipes from the Houston Chronicle from time to time, this one might actually a recipe she used!

http://www.chron.com/life/food/article/Overnight-French-Toast-1858875.php

Ingredients for your shopping list:

  • 1 loaf unsliced French bread
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
  • 1 cup tightly packed light or dark brown sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons Karo corn syrup
  • 5 eggs
  • 1-1/2 cups light whipping cream (buy a one-pint container, it contains 2 cups)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar (optional) to sprinkle over servings after baking
Summary with Carlyn’s modifications:
Preheat the oven to 350. Slice the French bread into 1-1/2 inch wide pieces and set aside.  This recipe works best with really thick slices of bread instead of multiple layers of thin slices.   Place the butter, brown sugar and Karo syrup in a 13 x 9 baking pan and stir to mix the brown sugar and Karo, breaking the butter into about 8 chunks with the spoon or spatula. Heat in the oven until the butter is melted, and the sugar is bubbling, between 3 and 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the sauce to cool some.  Turn the oven off then lay the slices of bread over the sauce.  Break up the last pieces of break to wedge in the spaces between the crusts.  Beat the eggs but don’t make them frothy.  Add the whipping cream, vanilla and nutmeg and mix thoroughly.  Pour this mixture over the bread slices, cover with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate the pan overnight, after the pan has cooled to room temperature.
Next morning, reheat the oven to 350 degrees, remove the foil or plastic covering and bake the pan of French toast for 30 minutes.  Serve warm. Scrape up the sauce with each slice of bread and if you like extra sweetening, sift a little powdered sugar over each serving.
Makes 6-8 servings.