Overnight Creme Brulee French Toast
Creme Brulee French Toast tastes like glorious Creme Brulee and can be thrown together in 15 minutes and made the night before for stress free breakfast and entertaining!
Servings 6 people
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 loaf 2 day-old French bread cut into 1” slices
- 5 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- cinnamon
Instructions
- In a small sauce pan, melt butter and brown sugar, stirring occasionally until smooth. Pour melted mixture into a lightly greased jelly roll pan (21"x15"x1″ or equivalent), and spread out evenly over the bottom of the pan.
- Arrange bread slices in a single layer to cover the pan (as many as will fit).
- Add eggs to a medium bowl and beat for 1 minute, then whisk in half and half, maple syrup, vanilla, orange extract and salt. Pour or spoon mixture evenly over each piece of bread then lightly sprinkle bread with cinnamon. Cover, and refrigerate at least 8 hours, or overnight.
- Bake uncovered at 350 degrees (175 degrees C) for 25-30 minutes or until lightly golden then flip all the slices of bread over and broil until the tops are golden.
- Top with syrup, berries, whipped cream, etc.
Video
Notes
Don't miss the "how to make" recipe video at the top of the post!
TIPS & TRICKS
- Cut bread thick. May sure your bread slices are about 1" thick. This will help them not to become soggy.
- Use dry bread. As previously mentioned, use 2-day-old bread or dry it out by baking slices for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F.
- Use large jelly roll pan. A jelly roll pan is a baking sheet with sides. For this Creme Brulee French Toast recipe, you will need a jelly roll pan measuring 18"x13"x1″ otherwise the bread will not fit and the butter/brown sugar layer will be too thick.
- Fit bread to size. You may or may not use all of your bread depending on the size of the loaf. You will want to add as many bread slices as will fit in a single layer on the jelly roll pan.
- Use brown sugar/butter mixture immediately. After you melt the butter and brown sugar, immediately pour it onto the jelly roll pan or it will thicken as it cools and become less spreadable. This means you want your jelly roll pan greased and ready to go before you melt the brown sugar/butter.
- Use half and half. Please don't substitute the half and half with milk or the mixture will be too runny and result in soggy Creme Brulee French Toast.
- Make your own half and half. If you don't have half and half stocked, but you have heavy cream, then use half heavy cream and half milk to make your own half and half.
- Spoon custard, don't dip. Most French Toast recipes have you dip the bread in the custard, but for this Creme Brulee French Toast recipe, we want to spoon the mixture onto the bread. This allows the bottom side of the bread to stay in direct contact with the butter/brown sugar mixture.
- Chill. Cover and refrigerate the Creme Brulee French Toast for at least 8 hours. This gives the custard time to permeate and really soak into the bread crevices resulting in sublime flavor and texture through and through. v