Storage: Covered - one day at room temp and two days in the fridge. Re-heat in the oven at 250°F until it's warmed up again. You can use any berries and serve as you'd like. You can use white bread, challah, brioche or French bread. Key is to dry the bread out and make sure the slices are reasonably thick.
Berries and Cream French Toast Casserole
Ingredients
Casserole:
- 2 loaves French bread you can also use challah, brioche or white bread instead
- 1 ½ cup berries I used strawberries and blueberries
Custard Base:
- 4 whole eggs room temp
- 1 ½ cups half and half room temp
- ½ cup milk room temp
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Cream cheese "stuffing"
- 4 oz cream cheese softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 small lemon juice and zest
- 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Streusel Topping:
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup unsalted butter softened + more for buttering the casserole dish
Instructions
- To start, cut the bread you'll be using into thick ½" to 1" slices. Butter your 9x13" casserole dish very liberally. Place your bread slices in the arrangement you'd like until the bread reaches the top rim of the dish. Bake the bread off for 10 minutes at 250°F to dry out the bread a bit.
- While the bread is in the oven, in a medium-sized bowl, mix the softened cream cheese, vanilla extract, lemon juice, zest, salt until well combined. Set to the side.
- In a large bowl, whisk the custard ingredients together until well combined. Set to the side.
- Once the casserole is out of the oven, place the berries you're using over the top of the casserole and try to push many down so they reach the bottom and middle of the dish. Make sure the berries are spread to a variety of places in the dish.
- Now, use a spoon to dollop the cream cheese mixture into the casserole. Again, ensure you spread to a variety of places in the dish. Make sure to get the corners, middle, top, etc.
- In a medium bowl, use your clean hands to combine the streusel topping ingredients until it all clumps together and resembles the texture of wet sand. Sprinkle this topping over the top of the casserole as evenly as possible.
- Bake the casserole at 350°F for 40 minutes, half the time covered with foil and the remaining half uncovered.
- Wait for about ten minutes for the casserole to "settle" so you can cut into it without it totally falling apart. Serve warm and enjoy!