I have never liked breakfast. I remember my dad and I always ate granola bars for breakfast when I was growing up. My mom and brothers preferred more traditional breakfasts, so we definitely had breakfast food in the house. I could never force myself to eat anything else in the mornings, though. Now, I occasionally eat cereal or yogurt, but I still eat granola bars almost every day. My husband, on the other hand, loves breakfast and he has been patiently converting me. That lead me to discover I actually enjoy breakfast for dinner.
With that discovery, however, I also realized that many breakfast foods can take a super long time to prepare, cook, and clean up. Washing dishes has never been my favorite household task anyway, but I do not appreciate having loads to do first thing in the morning. So, as I have been slowly building my breakfast and brunch recipe repertoire, I make them all for dinner when I have time to do all the work. In fact, we have breakfast for dinner usually once or twice a month. That’s huge for me!
One of my most recent creations was a Croissant French Toast Bake. I had extra croissants laying around (it is a recent favorite food for my little toddler so bought a lot recently), and I researched a ton of recipes online. My husband loves French toast, but I do not prefer the process of cooking each individual piece of bread separately. I find French Toast casseroles much more my style, and my husband really likes them too. From my research on such casseroles, I created this recipe I am sharing today – it was scrumptious!
This starts with cocktail croissants, which are a pretty standard sized roll (I got mine at Sam’s Club), but you could adjust the recipe and use the larger ones if you have them on hand instead. It also calls for quite a few eggs, making it a great option if you have some sitting in your fridge that you need to use up before their “best by” date.
I served the dish with hashbrowns and scrambled eggs, but it would taste delicious with any breakfast or brunch side options. I cannot wait until I have extra croissants so I get to make this again. So yummy!
Croissant French Toast Bake
Ingredients
- 10 cocktail croissants
- 5 eggs
- 1 tbsp melted butter, cooled
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ cup sugar
- ¾ cup whole milk
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Spray a 3 qt baking dish with nonstick spray.
- Break the criossants into small to medium pieces and spread them in the base of the prepared pan. Do not press them down.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter, cinnamon, sugar, milk, cream, and vanilla. Make sure everything is well combined.
- Pour the egg mixture evenly over the croissant pieces.
- Cover the baking dish with foil and place it in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.
- Take the baking dish out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 350°.
- Bake covered for 55 minutes, and then uncovered foran additional 5 minutes.
- Allow the dish to cool for about 5 minutes before serving with syrup, jam, whipped cream, etc.