Cranberry-Orange Baked French Toast Cups
An easy make ahead recipe for a fabulous holiday brunch!
**This post originally appeared on my other blog, YinMomYangMom.com.**
How are you all making out with the Thanksgiving leftovers? At our house they are still dwindling down. We are just getting to the remnants and, to be honest, kinda sick of it. So I thought I’d share this little preparation for using up the last of your cranberry sauce and rolls, in a really different way!
Don’t worry if you already gobbled up the last of your cranberry sauce, it literally takes minutes to whip up another batch, and you can maybe even get the cranberries on sale now.
It’s as easy as: 1 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries + 1 cup sugar + 1 cup water in a pot, simmer for 10 minutes.
As for the rolls, you can use leftover rolls from your Thanksgiving feast, or any stale crusty bread that you may have laying around.
This recipe makes a wonderful warm, comforting breakfast! You can bake it in a muffin tin, for individual portions that go easily from freezer to toaster oven or microwave, or make it in a big 9×13 casserole to feed a crowd for brunch or Christmas morning.
Start by cubing up the bread rolls. This can be done a day ahead, and left out to get the bread really dry and stale. That way, it will soak up lots and lots of the sweet and eggy custard. But, if you’re making it last minute, don’t worry. It’s not going to make or break the recipe if your bread isn’t stale.
Combine the eggs, milk, and cream (or half-and-half). Whisk in the sugar, vanilla, orange juice, orange peel, and cinnamon. Pour it over the cubed bread and let it sit for at least 10 minutes. (Think about doing this the night before…?) It can stay at room temperature for 30 minutes, but any longer than that and you should probably refrigerate it.
In a lightly greased baking dish, or in a lined muffin tin, layer custardy bread, cranberry sauce, custardy bread, cranberry sauce, etc., parfait style.
Bake at 350 degrees, for about 16 minutes for muffins, 30-40 minutes for a 9×13 baking dish. It should still be a little jiggly in the middle when you take it out of the oven. As it cools it will continue to cook and firm up.
Are you getting sick of eating Thanksgiving leftovers? Do you eat them straight-up Thanksgiving style, for days on end, or do you reinvent them in all sorts of ways? What kind of a breakfast do you do on Christmas morning? Are you so busy putting batteries into toys and gathering up torn wrapping paper that it just ends up being a cold cereal morning? Or do you plan ahead a fabulous brunch?
Cranberry-Orange Baked French Toast Cups
Ingredients
- 5 eggs
- 3/4 cups milk
- 3/4 cups cream or half-and-half
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- juice and zest of 1/2 orange
- 8 cubed, stale bread rolls
- 2 cups whole berry cranberry sauce
Instructions
- Whisk first 7 ingredients together to make the custard.
- Toss cubed bread into custard and let soak for 10 minutes or overnight.
- Alternate layers of custardy bread and cranberry sauce in a muffin tin.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 16 minutes.
- *Can be prepared in a 9x13 baking dish. Increase baking time to 30-40 minutes, or until golden around the edges and still slightly jiggly in the middle.
PS- Thanks to my hubby, Mr. Allie, for the idea for this recipe post! Having a foodie for a husband = never running out of inspiration!
PPS- I just want to mention that YinMom YangMom (quietly) just reached our first “blog”iversary. Right around that same time, you all gifted us with our 200th Facebook like. We just want to thank all of our readers, from the bottom of our hearts, for clicking over and taking the time to listen to our ramblings! xoxo
