I don't know about you, but breakfast time around here can be a very rushed thing. Years ago I started doing a freezer meal cooking session for French Toast. When I do a session I usually do at least 2 of the following three ways:
French Toast Sticks
Traditional French Toast
French Toast Casserole
Traditional French Toast:
You will love the simplicity of this idea. Just make the entire loaf of bread at once into french toast. I love to use marked down loaves of bread for this. It's a very inexpensive way to make a warm homemade breakfast on the go!
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| Yep! 57 cents for a loaf of bread! |
Cook the whole loaf of bread into french toast like you normally would. Now, lay out the cooked french toast onto cookie sheets that have been lightly sprayed with non-stick spray. Flash freeze the toast by placing the cookie sheets in the freezer for 30-45 minutes till the toast slices are individually frozen.
Remove the frozen toasts from the cookie sheets and stack them back into the empty bread bag. Tie bag closed and store in freezer.
To cook frozen french toast: Let your kids pop 2 of them into the toaster. Many toaster now have a "frozen" button to push to help cook them. I like this method better than the microwave.
French Toast Sticks
Kids from toddlers to teens like french toast sticks! I mean who doesn't like to dunk their breakfast, right?
I like to make french toast sticks in a big cooking session using discount bread (Texas toast is great !) or in my case, today I had a loaf of bread not rise well, so I baked it off anyway and sliced it thick into sticks. I wonder what left over banana or zuchinni bread would do? I never have left overs of that, but it does sound intriguing!
Slice bread into sticks, dunk sticks into your prepared egg batter and cook in skillet or oven bake on a cookie sheet as desired. I sprinkled a little cinnamon over the sticks as they cooked.
When all sticks are done, let cool. I prefer to pre-bag these into sandwich bags with 4-5 sticks per bag to store in the freezer. That way my kids can grab a bag, put it on a plate, microwave it for a few seconds and dunk away. But a toaster oven would be great for these also!
Now onto my Favorite:
French Toast Casserole!
(shhh! The secret is the topping crumble!)
You may not realize it, but you can freeze the bread/egg mixture before it bakes. It is so convenient to take it from the freezer to the refrigerator the night before to let it thaw and then bake it in a pan in the morning.
Although I've been making french toast casserole for years, a co-worker gave me her mothers version with a yummy brown sugar/butter topping sprinkled on top. I took her topping recipe and added in a packet of instant flavored oatmeal, and it really takes the casserole from good, to great! The oatmeal gives it a bit of a crunchy, sweet topping with no nuts! (My husband & I love nuts, but the kids don't!)
Ingredients:
Casserole:
12 slices of bread cubed into chunks.
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 heavy cream, half & half, or 1 (15 oz) can of evaporated milk
6 eggs beaten or 1 pint of egg beaters
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
Topping (optional)
1 stick butter or margarine
1 cup brown sugar (or make your own)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Optional: 1 cup chopped pecans or 1 packet of instant maple/brown sugar or apple cinnamon oatmeal
Directions:
Cube bread and place in a gallon sized freezer bag:
In a mixing bowl mix together the eggs, milk, cream(or half & half or evaporated milk), cinnamon, vanilla till well blended.
Pour egg mixture into freezer bag over the bread cubes. Seal bag and gently shake to mix bread and egg mixture together. Set aside to make the topping.
In a quart sized freezer bag place all the ingredients for the topping. Seal bag well. Squish the bag for a few minutes to mix together all the topping ingredients:
Place both the Casserole bag and the topping bag together in a 1 gallon freezer bag and seal . Lay flat in freezer to freeze.
To Bake French Toast Casserole:
Place frozen bag into the refrigerator the night before you want to bake it. In the morning. Butter a 9x13 baking dish. Fill dish with the egg mixture. Sprinkle the topping in little plops of crumbles over the egg mixture. (optional).
Bake at 350 degree's for 45-50 minutes or until it is golden brown and egg mixture is cooked through. Serve in bowls with powdered sugar and maple syrup.
