Overnight French Toast Casserole

Good morning, Borrowed Heaven readers! My name's Alex and I blog over at Radiating Sunshine. Meg and I have become great blog friends [after being paired in the Snowflake Swap!] and besides commenting on each other's blogs and emailing, we also share recipes! So, today Meg wanted to post about a recipe for a French Toast Casserole, that I shared with her a couple of weeks back. 

This delightful casserole has made appearances at every holiday breakfast/ brunch since I can remember and is such a treat. After having a slice, you would think that it probably takes hours to prepare… but, the secret is making the casserole the night before and letting a few hours in the refrigerator do the magic. So, not only do you get to have an amazing gourmet breakfast but, it does not take expert culinary skills or a ton of time to make. Now, you can spend that extra time, when you would be flipping pancakes or making eggs, with your loved ones and it can't get much better than that! 
My mama even made it for me yesterday, on New Year's Day, so here's a photo of my delicious breakfast!

Thanks for sharing your recipe, Alex!  We had it for the first time on Christmas, and LOVED it!!! Here's the best photo I took of it, we were waaayyy too busy enjoying it to photograph it!

My mom made it the night before, kept it in the fridge overnight, and added the praline topping right before we baked it.  It was a fantastic break from this haha...

Bread Ingredients: 

1 loaf of French bread (20 slices)

8 eggs

2 cup half and half

1 cup milk

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp cinnamon 

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Dash of salt

Praline Topping Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter 

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

2 tbsp light corn syrup

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine eggs, half and half, and all other "bread" ingredients in bowl and dip in bread.

3. Layer slices in greased 13x9 pan like shown below.

We ate it so fast that I couldn't take a photo of the whole casserole, so here's one I found!

4. Spread praline topping evenly over top.

5. Bake for 40 minutes until puffy and golden brown.

6. Serve with maple syrup!