Baked Pumpkin French Toast

A couple of days ago, my cousin Keri sent me a recipe link (via Pinterest) for Baked Pumpkin French Toast. I love pumpkin, and given the fact that my husbands birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted to make this for him. Who wouldn't want a fabulous breakfast before having to work on your birthday?
Any who, I liked the idea of the recipe, but decided to put my own spin on it. Instead of using bread cubes, I used a french baguette. Also, I should have cut down the amount of egg and milk so mine came out really eggy (which was fine with me), but I'll give you a scaled down recipe that should work better. I also changed some of the ingredients. So this ended up being different from the original, but I'll include a link at the bottem to it.

 

French Toast Ingredients

You want to start out by greasing a 9x13 baking dish. I just buttered mine. You then cut up your baguette and place them in the dish.

Set aside and then you can start on the egg mixture.  You want to whisk your eggs, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla together until well combined. It should resemble the picture below.

Then pour the egg mixture over your bread in the baking dish. Take a fork and flip each piece so that it is completely covered in egg. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Ready for the fridge!

 In the morning you can start on the topping for the french toast. The original recipe called for just topping the french toast with brown sugar. I thought it would be better with a French Crumb topping. 

Topping Ingredients

Now, you do not want to over soften your butter (like I did). It makes more of a doughy batter than a crumbly topping if it's too soft. Start with slightly softened butter and add your brown sugar. Once the butter and sugar is combined, add in your flour. Combine and it should be crumbly.

See, a bit too soft.

 

Once your topping is prepared, take your french toast out of the fridge. Top your french toast with the crumb topping. It should resemble the below picture.

Ready for baking!

 

Bake in a 350 degree oven until toast is golden brown and the crumb topping is slightly browned and crispy. We served ours with a little maple syrup.

YUMMY

 

Now, this came out really well. The pumpkin flavor was spot on and we all loved the crumb topping. However, I would add cinnamon to the crumb topping for an extra kick of flavor. That would have really made the flavor even better.  I will include how much I think you should add in the below recipe.

Recipe: (adapted from minimalistbaker.com) 

1 baguette (I used french, but wheat would work)

5 large eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup Pumpkin Puree

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

butter for greasing

 

Topping

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup flour

*1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon (optional)

 

Butter 9x13 baking dish

Slice baguette into 1 inch slices; place in buttered dish

Whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree in large bowl.

Pour over bread and flip each one over so it is completely covered in the egg mixture. Wrap dish in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

In the morning preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in flour until mixture is crumbly.

Remove Pumpkin French Toast from fridge, top with crumb topping. 

Bake for about 40minutes or until toast is golden brown and crumb topping is crispy.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

 

Well, this may be my last blog for a couple weeks. I am heading to a wedding and then spending a nice long time with family! Happy Halloween Season!!