Overnight Blueberry French Toast

I saw this recipe floating around Pinterest quite a bit, and thought it sounded like a great weekend treat. I love making big breakfasts Saturday and Sunday mornings, and if I can do most of the work the night before, all the better! 

This was easy to make, and tasted pretty great! If you are a big fan of sweets, you will especially love the fruity syrup. It's also a great way to use up the heels of bread. The original recipe came from Chef in Training. 

The Ingredients for French Toast:

• 12 slices of bread
• 12 eggs
• 8 oz of cream cheese (or low fat neufchâtel cheese)
• 12 oz of blueberries (frozen works great)
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 2 cups of milk (I used almond milk)

The Ingredients for Fruit Syrup:

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp of cornstarch
• 10 oz of mixed berrie (frozen works great)
• 1 Tbsp of butter

The Steps:

1. Break bread into bite-size pieces and put half in bottom of greased 9x13 pan.
2. Put spoonfuls of cream cheese on top of bread.
3. Spread frozen blueberries on top of cream cheese
4. Add the remainder of the bread pieces.
5. In a bowl, mix together 2 cups of milk, 12 eggs, and 1/3 cup of maple syrup. Pour over bread.
6. Cover pan and refrigerate overnight. 
7. In the morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
8. Cover french toast ban with foil and bake in 350 for 30 minutes. 
9. Remove foil and bake for 30 more minutes.
10. While it's baking, make the syrup...
11. In a medium saucepan, cook 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, and 2 Tbsp of cornstarch.
12. Stir in mixed berries and simmer for 10 minutes
13. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and stir until melted. 
14. When french toast is done baking, pour syrup on top and enjoy!

The Pictures:

Here are the french toast ingredients, except for the milk. Whoops! It was still in the fridge. 

Whenever we finish using a bag of bread, I save the heels in my freezer for future uses (like grinding into bread crumbs). When this recipe came along, I knew it would be another way to make good use of them!

Break the bread into bite-sized pieces, and put half of them in the bottom of a greased glass pan.

Put dollops (I love that word!) of cream cheese on top of the bread.

Dump bag of frozen blueberries on top.

Put the remainder of the bread on top.

Measure 2 cups of milk into a large bowl.

Add twelve eggs and beat well.

Add 1/3 cup of syrup and stir together well.

Pour mixture on top.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, roll out of bed and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cover french toast with foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and bake for 30 more minutes. 

Voila!

While the french toast is baking, it's time to make the syrup! 

Mix together 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, and 2 Tbsp of corn starch. Cook until thickened. 

Stir in mixed berries and simmer for 10 minutes.  

Add a tablespoon of butter and stir until melted. 

Move the syrup to a pourable container so you can drizzle over the french toast.

I know, this looks kinda mooshy and gross. But it doesn't taste it!

There's plenty of syrup... no need to be stingy with it!

The original recipe called for just using blueberries for the syrup, but I thought mixed berries would be more fun. 

I don't have a very big sweet tooth, so this was a bit sugary for me. I ended up using most of the syrup to make some flavored yogurt (more on that in a future post), and ate the rest of the french toast plain for breakfast the rest of the week.