Want French toast without the hassle of preparing it piece by piece? This easy brioche French toast casserole is the solution! Decadent and delicious, this French toast casserole is perfect for a special homemade brunch, or for hosting an event like Mother’s Day or Easter!
If you love French toast, but don’t want to stand over a pan or griddle flipping your special breakfast piece by piece, this baked brioche French toast casserole is a must-try!
This easy French toast casserole with brioche bread is made with a rich, custard base like you’d use to dip regular French toast in. But instead of dipping each slice of bread and then frying it on the stovetop, you pour the custard mixture over cut up brioche bread in a baking dish. Then let it rest, bake, and enjoy!
Another reason I love this recipe is that the prep takes less than 10 minutes (so easy!), and then you can cover and place your brioche French toast casserole overnight in the fridge to set up! Let it sit on the counter while your oven preheats, and then bake it in the morning for a warm and delicious breakfast!
Make your brunch extra special by serving this overnight brioche French toast casserole with this easy and delicious fresh fruit salad!
Jump to:
- Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Ingredients Needed
- Recipe Variations and Substitutions
- Step-By-Step Instructions
- French Toast Toppings Ideas
- Possible Dietary Restrictions?
- Storage and Reheating Directions
- Expert Tips
- Helpful Equipment
- Recipe FAQs
- Love This Recipe? You May Also Enjoy
- 📖 Brioche French Toast Casserole
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Prep only takes 10 minutes! Cut up your loaf of brioche. Whisk together your custard ingredients. Pour the custard over your brioche bread pieces in a baking dish… and that’s it!
Option to let it set up overnight in the fridge and bake it fresh in the morning. Prepping your brioche French toast casserole the night before keeps your morning easy while still delivering a yummy and special breakfast.
Made with brioche bread. French toast with brioche bread is SO GOOD. This type of bread is slightly sweet, has a soft texture, and rich taste. It’s the perfect bread for this easy French toast casserole!
Great for a crowd! Hosting your girlfriends for a weekend brunch? Having family over for Mother’s Day or Easter brunch? Wow your family and friends with this super delicious, decadent, and secretly easy dish!
Leftovers are great for a quick, easy weekday breakfast! You can make this for a nice weekend brunch, or use this to meal prep for a sweet, delicious, and easy weekday breakfast!
Ingredients Needed
- Brioche Bread. Buttery brioche bread is a slightly sweet bread with a light, fluffy, and soft texture that is perfect for French toast casserole! Grab a loaf of brioche bread at your local grocery store or a local bakery! If you love to bake bread, homemade brioche bread is a great option too.
- Large Eggs. Eggs are a must for making the perfect custard mixture for French toast or French toast casserole! Plus, eggs are a nutritional powerhouse and add protein to this easy brioche French toast casserole recipe!
- Milk AND Heavy Cream. Heavy cream must for the perfect, rich French toast custard mixture. However, with this baked French toast casserole, lightening up the mixture with some 2% milk (or whole milk) creates a better balance for this dish. It also lowers the fat content of your breakfast casserole, which is a little added bonus in my book.
- Brown Sugar. Used to sweeten the custard for your overnight French toast casserole. You can use light brown sugar or dark brown sugar, both will work great! Light brown sugar has a more subtle flavor than dark. Use whichever you prefer!
- Cinnamon. Adding ground cinnamon to your custard mixture adds a wonderful pop of flavor and really enriches the whole French toast casserole’s flavor profile.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Recipe Variations and Substitutions
- Use challah bread. Challah bread is a great substitution for brioche bread in this recipe if it is easier for you to find! Challah is a yeast bread that is made from an enriched dough (similar to brioche), but uses oil instead of butter when being made.
- Lighten up your custard mixture with half and half. If heavy whipping cream isn’t your thing, you can lighten up your custard mixture by using half and half instead of the heavy cream.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1: Add eggs to a large mixing bowl and whisk.
Step 2: Add milk and heavy cream to the eggs, and whisk again.
Step 3: Add brown sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and ground cinnamon to the egg, milk, and cream mixture.
Step 4: Whisk until well combined. Set custard mixture aside.
Step 5: Cut brioche bread into 1″ cubes.
Step 6: Place bread cubes into an even layer in a greased 9×13″ baking dish. Pour custard mixture over the top.
Step 7: Gently press dry bread cubes down into the wet custard mixture to ensure all pieces have been moistened.
Step 8: Cover with tinfoil set in the refrigerator to rest for a minimum of 2 hours (up to overnight if time allows).
Step 9: When ready to bake, pull the brioche French toast bake out of the fridge while the oven preheats to 350°F. Bake, still covered with tinfoil, for 20 minutes. Remove tinfoil and continue to bake for another 20-25 minutes until the casserole has puffed up, the edges are golden, and the bake is set.
French Toast Toppings Ideas
The classic way to serve this brioche French toast bake would be a dusting of powdered sugar plus a (generous) drizzle of pure maple syrup. Fresh berries in addition to these are also very popular!
Other French toast topping ideas include:
- Fresh berries – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries.
- Pure maple syrup.
- Powdered sugar.
- Whipped cream.
- Fruit syrups – blueberry syrup, strawberry syrup, etc.
- Fruit compotes – cherry compote, mixed berry compote, etc. This homemade rhubarb compote with strawberries and apples would be a great choice too!
- Toasted pecans or walnuts.
- Nutella hazelnut spread or chocolate syrup.
- Plain or vanilla Greek yogurt with maple syrup and berries.
Possible Dietary Restrictions?
This baked French toast brioche casserole recipe is vegetarian as written.
Make this into a gluten free French toast casserole by selecting a gluten free brioche bread (or gluten free challah bread).
Storage and Reheating Directions
Store leftover French toast casserole in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
If you plan to reheat a large portion of the French toast casserole in the casserole dish, do so by placing the dish into the oven at 350°F until warmed through. Alternatively, small portions can be reheated in the microwave.
Expert Tips
Allow your brioche French toast casserole to rest overnight. Turning this into an overnight French toast casserole is great for several reasons:
- Allowing the bread to sit overnight allows the custard to soak into the bread, ensuring no dry spots when baked.
- It’s super convenient! It only takes 10 minutes to prep this dish, cover and place it in the fridge overnight, and wha-la! You can have fresh baked French toast casserole ready to enjoy in the morning!
Have your pan covered for the first half of baking. This helps to avoid an overly dark or crispy top on your French toast bake.
Helpful Equipment
You will need a 9×13 pan to make this easy brioche French toast casserole recipe. You can use a simple Pyrex glass 9×13, or a pretty ceramic 9×13 which can double as a nice serving dish!
Recipe FAQs
Brioche bread is made with an enriched dough with a high proportion of eggs and butter. Brioche is known to be slightly sweet, has a light, fluffy, and soft texture, and has a rich taste. It can be used for both savory and sweet dishes.
Generally you want any type of bread you are using for French toast to be slightly stale. This is because really fresh bread tends to soak up the custard batter that it is dipped in, which can lead to soggy French toast.
If you have a fresh loaf of bread, you can help dry it out a bit in a few ways:
I like to simply open the package and set the bread out on a wire rack and let the air do it’s job for 30-60 minutes. You can work on prepping the rest of your recipe while you do this.
You can expedite the process by placing slices of the bread on a baking sheet and place it in a 300°F oven for 5-7 minutes.
– Fresh berries – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries.
– Pure maple syrup.
– Powdered sugar.
– Whipped cream.
– Fruit syrups – blueberry syrup, strawberry syrup, etc.
– Fruit compotes – cherry compote, mixed berry compote, etc.
– Toasted pecans or walnuts.
– Nutella hazelnut spread or chocolate syrup.
– Plain or vanilla Greek yogurt with maple syrup and berries.
French toast pairs well with egg dishes like scrambled eggs, fried eggs, or a simple omelet. Adding a salty meat like bacon or breakfast sausage patties or links is a nice complement to the sweetness of French toast. A fresh fruit salad is also a great addition to a breakfast spread with French toast.
Season your French toast batter! While eggs and milk are the only essentials needed to make a classic custard base/batter for your French toast, adding cinnamon, vanilla, and even sugar helps to liven everything up! You can also try blends, like pumpkin pie spice, to add even more depth of flavor to your French toast.
There is likely too much custard mixture. If your French toast casserole is too wet, this can lead to a soggy casserole. We’ve never had an issue with this recipe turning out soggy because we’ve perfect the ratio of custard mixture to bread. And the use of rich brioche bread is also helpful in soaking up all the custard mixture goodness to create the perfect French toast casserole!
Love This Recipe? You May Also Enjoy
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📖 Brioche French Toast Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 loaf brioche bread, cut into 1" cubes (17.6oz loaf)
- 6 large eggs
- 1 C 2% or whole milk
- 1 C heavy cream
- ½ C brown sugar (light or dark)
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Use cooking spray to grease the base and sides of a 9×13 baking dish, set aside.
- Slice brioche bread into 1" cubes and place them in an even layer in the prepared baking dish.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and salt.
- Pour the custard mixture over over the bread, and gently push down any pieces that may not be wet to ensure all pieces are covered.
- Cover baking dish with tinfoil and place in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours (overnight if possible).
- When ready to bake, pull the dish out of the fridge to allow it to warm up a bit while the oven preheats. Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Bake the French toast casserole covered for 20 minutes, and then remove the tinfoil and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes until the casserole has puffed up, the edges are golden, and the bake is set (option to check with a toothpick, if it comes out clean it is good to go).
- Allow the casserole to sit for 5-10 minutes prior to slicing and serving with your favorite toppings. Enjoy!
Notes
- Use challah bread instead of brioche bread. Replace bread 1-to-1 to do this.
- Lighten up your custard mixture with half and half. Replace heavy cream 1-for-1 with half and half to do this.
- Fresh berries – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries.
- Pure maple syrup.
- Powdered sugar.
- Whipped cream.
- Fruit syrups – blueberry syrup, strawberry syrup, etc.
- Fruit compotes – cherry compote, mixed berry compote, etc. This homemade rhubarb compote with strawberries and apples would be a great choice too!
- Toasted pecans or walnuts.
- Nutella hazelnut spread or chocolate syrup.
- Plain or vanilla Greek yogurt with maple syrup and berries.
Laura Kwapil says
If Jesus were to make French toast – this would be it. I could eat this every day and not get tired of it! It could be great for breakfast but also a late night snicky snack when you’re needing a sweetsy treat. 11/10 rating hands down! You would be doing yourself a disservice if you chose not to make this recipe.
Meredith says
BEST REVIEW EVER. So happy you loved it Laura!
Bridget says
This was delicious! Mine turned out a bit wet in the middle even after baking as described above and using the same brioche loaf size. Next time I’ll make slightly less custard. Regardless, it was still a big hit at our house!
Meredith says
I’m so happy to hear the French Toast Bake was a hit Bridget (even if it was a little extra dense in the center)! Thank you so much for giving this recipe a try.
David says
Full disclosure: I’m the husband that ate the very french toast casserole in the photos. Can confirm it’s both dope and good. I ate way too much of it.
Meredith says
Thanks Dave, xo