Easiest Overnight French Toast Bake
You can easily prep this the night before in only 10 min. Then just pop it in the oven right before serving. So easy!
I am a huge fan of brunch. If I could, I’d brunch every day, especially since you can sleep in a bit yet still indulge in all of its breakfast glory, like this baked French toast.
Now this French toast is super simple, super easy and basically fool-proof. Best of all, this can be made the night before. No wait, scratch that, this is meant to be made the night before. Sure, you can make it a couple of hours in advance but you really want to give it a full night so that your bread slices can soak up all that goodness.
When you’re ready to serve, go ahead and pour on that epic maple glaze. It replaces the need for syrup, and in my opinion, just makes it 100000x better.
Easiest Overnight French Toast Bake
Ingredients
- 3 small French baguettes, ends trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch slices
- 1 ½ cups milk
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
For the maple glaze
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- ¼ cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup, or more, to taste
Instructions
- Lightly coat a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick spray. Place bread slices evenly into the baking dish.
- In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour mixture evenly over the bread slices. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place the bread mixture into the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and maple syrup until well combined and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Pour mixture evenly over the bread slices.
- Serve immediately, sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
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Do you think I could make a much larger batch in a roasting pan? I am feeding a large group and need more baked at once.
Yes, absolutely! Although you may have to adjust cooking time as needed.
I used 3 day old French baguettes so that may have been the issue…..but, did anyone else have to rotate their bread so that it evenly absorbed? I let mine soak overnight and found the the tops were still hard and bottoms were soggy. I rotated and added more egg mixture. It helped, but added to prep time and complicated the recipe. Anyone else? Or was it just the hard baguette?
Jw, I imagine the baguettes to be super hard after 3 days – it is really best to use day-old bread for best results. Bu thank you for trying my recipe!
I made this for Mother’s Day. It was very good but I had the same issue as the previous poster. Next time I will coat the individual slices with the egg mixture then arrange in the dish. Beautiful presentation and the glaze is over the top delicious, it really makes the recipe special. Thank you for a great recipe!
I made this recipe this weekend and it was very good but the top of the bread had no egg mixture.The bottom was really soggy and the top hard and dry. I followed the recipe to the “T”! How does this not happen for you?
It’s really best to get every single bread slice completely soaked so that all the custard mixture does not sink to the bottom.
I had the same issue when I did it the first time. We ended up wasting the top half of it because it was way too hard to eat.
To remedy the issue, I doubled the egg mixture and flipped the bread right before I baked it. Turned out great! Still haven’t gotten the amount of bread just right yet, but it’s still super tasty!
hello, I do not have vanilla bean paste, may I sub with vanilla extract?! Thanks!
Yes, absolutely! The conversion is typically 1 tbsp pure vanilla bean paste to 1 tbsp vanilla bean extract.
I’m excited to make this! I have vanilla egg challah bread. Can I use that?
Yes, of course!
I made this recipe for our breakfast this morning and found that the egg mixture did not get absorbed well into the bread. It did sit in the fridge overnight. The flavor on the edges of the bread was great but the center was dry. Any tips for how to remedy my issue?
Amanda, it is best to have the bread slices stacked with a little bit of space in between to ensure that the egg mixture coats everything.
Same thing happened to me, Amanda. Gonna use a few less slices of bread next time. Made a test batch this AM so I could perfect it for a Sip n’ See tomorrow. So glad I saw your comment!
I pour the egg mixture trying to get in between the slices and let it sit about an hour then flip the bread over so the top is now on the bottom. Then before I bake it I flip it right side up again. I have made this many times and it’s always a hit especially because of the clever presentation!
This was very tasty and very easy to make. We substituted coconut milk for milk and yielded great results. Also, after making and adding the glaze, I put it back in the oven for 2 minutes(watching it carelfully) on broil and it was delightful. Thx for this super easy, super tasty treat.
Do you recommend baking it covered or uncovered?
It is best to bake uncovered.
For freezing, would you recommend freezing unbaked or after it has been baked?
Unfortunately, I cannot answer this with certainty as I have never tried freezing this. Please use your best judgment for freezing and reheating.
Ok, when I first looked at the prep time of 2 hours and 10 minutes I was turned off…but I continued to read and was happy to see that majority of that time was for the bread to absorb the liquid! Plan to make this very soon! Thank you!
This looks divine!!! I was thinking about trying this for an elderly gentleman that I cook for, and was wondering if this would be able to be reheated.
Yes, these reheat just fine.
The ONLY reason that i can’t make this is because i would eat the WHOLE thing, LOL
Yessssssssssssss! So in love.
So perfect for brunch, I love the vanilla bean paste and maple glaze!
I am not at all an early riser so this is just perfect for me!! I will so seriously wait for it all night!! Yumm!!
I’m just getting into cooking and receiving your daily recipes have been extremely helpful. I’m a novice when it comes to cooking so this may be a crazy question but can you utilize margarine instead of unsalted butter?
I honestly don’t have much experience cooking with margarine so I can’t really say for sure if this will change the overall taste/texture of the dish without further recipe testing.
Butter all the way. Margarine just doesn’t taste the same and reacts differently than butter.
I think people that have commented are confused regarding the bread based on your pictures. It appears that you actually used a French Baguette, the long, narrow bread versus a French loaf which is about 4-5″ wide. You have 3 rows of “baguette” in the 13×9 pan.
Thanks for clarifying, Stephanie! But the great thing about this recipe is that you could really use any kind of loaf – French loaf, baguette, ciabatta, sourdough – it’s up to you!
Do you bake it standing up like that? Looks like the egg mixture would just be on the bottom of the bread. I usually lay it down flat but would prefer your method if it works.
Thank you
Yes, I baked it “standing up” – it works just fine if you pour the egg mixture evenly between the bread slices and let it soak overnight. But, of course, please do what works best for you.
Loving that this recipe calls for an entire loaf of bread, and it sounds and looks absolutely fantasmic 😀 x