Hosting overnight guests? Treat them to a restaurant-quality brunch at home with this Overnight Caramel Pecan French Toast recipe!
Looking for another option besides the standard breakfast bake to serve your overnight guests? While our tasty Fireman’s Overnight Breakfast Casserole is crazy popular, sometimes you want to serve something besides an egg casserole. Look no further than this decadent Overnight Caramel Pecan French Toast recipe.
Like waffles or pancakes, making french toast for a group of people can be time-consuming. This Overnight Caramel Pecan French Toast recipe eliminates your need to stay chained to the stove during brunch by letting the oven do the heavy lifting for you. Though this recipe for Overnight Caramel Pecan French Toast is written for a large group, you can also easily scale it down for a more intimate gathering and it still works perfectly.
Plus this Overnight Caramel Pecan French Toast couldn’t be simpler to put together. Assemble your ingredients the night before, soak in the fridge overnight and then bake for 25 minutes in the morning. The butter/sugar/pecan mixture on the bottom of the pan bubbles and caramelizes on the edges of the french toast. Any extra caramel sauce can be spooned over the top - or simply licked off the pan. Syrup becomes totally optional and truly unnecessary. (Unless you’re my kids. Then syrup is ALWAYS necessary. On everything.)
Note: recipe retested and amended in December 2020 to reflect easy-to-find ingredients like sliced brioche loaf.
Caramel Pecan Overnight French Toast
Ingredients
- 9 slices of brioche bread, slightly stale (I used a packaged, presliced loaf of brioche bread that is easily found at most grocery stores.)
- 3 eggs
- 1 ¼ cups whole milk
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 8 tablespoons melted butter
- ½ cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- If bread is not stale, place bread slices on a sheet pan on the counter for a few hours, flipping halfway through so both sides dry out.
- When ready to assemble, whisk together eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Place bread slices in one layer on a large sheet pan. Pour egg mixture over bread slices. Spoon excess egg mixture over bread to cover all pieces. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. Carefully flip bread slices at least one hour before baking.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Whisk together brown sugar and melted butter until thoroughly combined. Stir in pecans. Pour onto another large sheet pan, spreading evenly on the bottom on the pan. Place soaked bread pieces on the brown sugar mixture. Bake for 20-23 minutes or until the bread slices are golden brown and the sugar bubbles.
- Serve immediately while still hot, spooning excess caramel sauce over french toast pieces.
Notes
- Slightly stale bread is key to making sure your french toast isn't overly soggy once baked.
- The caramel sauce will cool and start to harden once removed from the oven so try to serve your french toast as soon as possible when it's done baking. Then pop the dirty pan in the sink to soak while you eat.
- Serving a crowd? Double the recipe and use two sheet pans.
- Recipe adapted from The New York Times.
Nutrition
Nutrition info not guaranteed to be accurate.
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When do you add pecans? After baked or before? Pieces or halves?
Hi Candy, Add a generous 1/2 cup of pecan pieces when you combine the butter and brown sugar. P.S. Thanks for catching the missing ingredient! I'll update the recipe.
This looks delicious! And while I like the IDEA of breakfast in bed, in reality, it just means you'd have to do laundry that day to get rid of the crumbs!
#Truth, Julie. 😉
I love that this can be made overnight, and using brioche is the perfect added touch!
Overnight? Sign me up!
This would be the perfect breakfast to wake up to on a weekend! You won't need any syrup on this delish french toast.
I know! Now I just need to convince Pat to make it for me...
O.M.G. I would be so excited to have this for breakfast I'm not sure I could even sleep the night before.