As I promised many many moons ago to all my adoring (at least I hope you are) fans on Facebook, here is the amazing french toast recipe I keep blabbing about.
Recipes like these happen when I dream about food. No joke. I woke up one morning and remembered eating something in my dream that was basically the love child between blueberry muffins and french toast. So naturally, I dropped my plans for the day and decided to make this dream food of mine a reality. Struesel + blueberries + muffins + french toast = mind blowing deliciousness. Or at least that's what I remembered in my dream. The truth of matter is that I was completely right. Once this was made, I basically had a piece for every meal and snack I could justify eating until the pan was gone.
You've probably made or heard about some variation of a french toast casserole before. I've had my fair share and am usually not impressed. If you feel the same, DON'T WRITE THIS OFF! Something magical happens when you combine 2 kinds of bread, one being light and rich croissants, with cream cheese, cream, eggs and blueberries AND top it with struesel. What can go wrong really, besides having to run an extra mile or 8?
What you'll need: 4 Croissants, a loaf of french bread, milk, cream, eggs, creme cheese, butter, vanilla, blueberries, and maple syrup.
Cube up your bread into 1-2 inch cubes and toss until evenly distributed in a greased pan. Using the 2 types of bread in this keeps the texture varied and light. Croissants are my friend. At this point you'll toss the bread with the blueberries too. I used frozen, but fresh would work splendidly!
You'll need a medium sized bowl to mix your liquids up in. Start by microwaving the cream cheese and butter until it's very soft. Slowly add in the syrup and vanilla and whisk until it's well combined.
Add in the eggs, milk, and cream and whisk again until smooth.
Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of yourself pouring an egg mixture evenly over bread without making a mess?
HARD!
I'm done whining. Pour your egg mixture evenly over the bread -you want all the bread to be able to absorb the liquid so sometimes I even squish the bread down into the pan a bit to coat it.
STREUSEL! This is where it gets good. Combine your sugars and cinnamon and pour your melted butter over the top. Using your fingers or a fork mix it until it looks like wet sand.
You want to build a sand castle out of this don't you? Me too, me too. Do, or don't and set it aside for a few hours or overnight.
Now, at this point the bread/egg/blueberry mixture needs to mellow for a while before being baked so the bread has time to soak up all the eggy goodness. Wrap it up, sans the streusel, and plop it in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours or overnight.
When you're ready to bake, sprinkle the streusel over the top and bake until its puffed up, golded brown, and a knife comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
Serve warm with syrup. We LOVE buttermilk syrup and it went perfect with this!
📖 Recipe
Blueberry Muffin French Toast Souffle
Ingredients
- 4 large croissants
- 4 C french or Italian bread
- 8 oz. cream cheese softened
- ¼ C butter
- ½ tsp. vanilla
- ½ C maple syrup
- 8 eggs
- ⅔ C cream
- 11/2 C milk
- 2 C fresh or frozen blueberries
- Streusel
- ⅓ C brown sugar
- ⅓ C white sugar
- ⅓ C flour
- 3 tablespoon butter melted
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Place bread cubes in a greased 9×13 pan. Toss bread with blueberries.
- Soften cream cheese and butter in microwave and combine with vanilla and syrup, whisking until smooth.
- Add eggs. Then add milk and cream, whisking to combine.
- Combine sugars, flour and cinnamon for the streusel. Pour melted butter over sugar mix and combine with a fork or fingers until it looks like wet sand. Set aside.
- Pour egg mixture over bread and refrigerate for 3 hours up to overnight.
- when ready to bake, remove from fridge and sprinkle streusel evenly over the bread.
- Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown, set and a knife comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
- Serve warm with buttermilk syrup if desired
Carla says
OMG I made this for 17 guests and everyone LOVED it. I made the day before and cooked it and warmed it up the next day to serve with the other dishes. This was the HIT of all the 11 dishes I made. Thank you!!
Sondra Satz says
Absolutely excellent, my only problem was with the amount of butter and the amount of sugar. If you used your buttermilk syrup, your young kids would have a great sugar high. What I loved was that I could make it the night before along with 3 other breakfast casseroles and then get up, bake them, and since my table was all set, it was a wonderful presentation. I changed the recipe just a bit, I used 1% fat free milk and I added cinnamon and nutmeg. Where you called for 2 cups of sugar, I used l c sugar and equivalent amount of truvia. I decreased the butter only by tablespoons, It still was fantastic and less calories, less CHO, less fat and no one knew.
Deborah says
Cranberries!!
Carmen says
used almond flavor instead of vanilla in buttermilk syrup..yum and, since I am not a fan of maple..I used regular syrup and vanilla...next time I might try honey 🙂
Malin says
OMG - Just the title alone of this had me drooling... All the good stuff baked into one - I´m amazed and intrigued 😉
This looks absolutely divine! And hey, buttermilk syrup: you have a recipe for that? I´ve never tried that before, but can only imagine it being delicious!
Cylantro says
I am so going to make this for my brunch, but what is a cube of butter?