Soft French bread baked in a cinnamon-vanilla custard with a buttery brown sugar base — a sweet breakfast treat with a few lessons learnt along the way.
🍞 Breakfast Is Served… With a Little Cinnamon and Chaos
There’s something lovely about a proper weekend breakfast.
Not the usual weekday routine of grabbing something quick before getting on with everything that needs doing, but actually spending a little time making something special.
And today’s breakfast experiment?
French Toast Casserole.
Now, I do love French toast, so the idea of turning it into one big breakfast bake sounded rather promising.
We’re talking chunks of bread, a buttery brown sugar base, cinnamon, vanilla and a generous dusting of icing sugar.
Essentially, all the lovely bits of French toast without having to stand over a frying pan making individual slices.
The original recipe also claimed it would be ready in just 40 minutes.
Naturally, my kitchen had other ideas.
📖 The Original Recipe
Today’s breakfast experiment comes from Ashlyn Edwards at Belle of the Kitchen, whose French Toast Casserole recipe was originally published back in August 2020.
The recipe takes everything lovely about traditional French toast and turns it into one big oven-baked breakfast.
Rather than dipping and frying individual slices of bread, cubed French bread is layered over melted butter and brown sugar, covered in a cinnamon-vanilla custard mixture and baked until golden.
The original recipe also includes an overnight make-ahead option, which sounds particularly handy for Christmas morning or those weekends when you fancy a special breakfast without quite so much morning preparation.
At a Glance
Original recipe: French Toast Casserole
Created by: Ashlyn Edwards
Website: Belle of the Kitchen
Original yield: 8 servings
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes
Total: 40 minutes
Find the original recipe here:
https://belleofthekitchen.com/french-toast-casserole/
As always, this post is my personal review of making the recipe, including the products I used, my ingredient substitutions, actual timings and what the family thought.
🛒 What I Used
For this recipe, I used products from Asda, along with Silver Spoon icing sugar.
Here’s what went into my version:
| Ingredient | Product Used |
|---|---|
| 227g bread | The BAKERY at ASDA Bake at Home White Bloomer |
| 113g butter alternative | BAKE by ASDA Best for Baking Cakes & Sponges |
| 200g light brown sugar | ASDA Light Brown Sugar |
| 6 eggs | ASDA Free Range Medium Eggs |
| 480ml milk | ASDA British Semi Skimmed Milk |
| 2 tsp vanilla extract | Exceptional by ASDA Madagascan Vanilla Extract |
| 2 tsp ground cinnamon | COOK by ASDA Ground Sweet Cinnamon |
| 1 tbsp additional brown sugar | ASDA Light Brown Sugar |
| Icing sugar, for dusting | Silver Spoon Icing Sugar |
The original recipe calls for French bread, but because this is an American recipe, I decided the closest practical substitute for me would be white bloomer.
I went with Asda’s Bake at Home White Bloomer, using the original recipe’s 227g measurement.
I also used baking spread instead of butter.
Everything else was measured according to my saved recipe, including the additional brown sugar and cinnamon for the topping.
Nothing particularly adventurous.
Although, as we’ll discover later, I do wonder whether either of those substitutions might have played a part in how the finished casserole turned out.
💷 The Budget Breakdown
Now for our newest addition to the Kitchen Notebook recipe reviews!
Because while a delicious breakfast sounds wonderful, there’s still the small matter of how much it costs.
Especially when you’re trying to make the family food budget stretch.
How Much Did French Toast Casserole Cost?
Using online prices for the products I used, here’s my estimated ingredient breakdown.
| Ingredient | Estimated Cost Used |
|---|---|
| ASDA White Bloomer — 227g | £0.41 |
| ASDA Baking Spread — 113g | £0.35 |
| ASDA Light Brown Sugar — 200g + 1 tbsp | £0.85 |
| ASDA Medium Eggs — 6 | £1.43 |
| ASDA Semi Skimmed Milk — 480ml | £0.35 |
| Madagascan Vanilla Extract — 2 tsp | £0.22 |
| Ground Sweet Cinnamon — 2 tsp | £0.13 |
| Silver Spoon Icing Sugar — estimated light dusting | £0.03 |
| Total Estimated Recipe Cost | Approximately £3.75 |
Not bad for a sweet breakfast bake!
The Cost Per Serving
Here’s where things get interesting.
Original recipe servings: 8
Actual generous servings: 4
Estimated recipe cost: £3.75
Cost per original serving: Approximately £0.47
Cost per actual generous serving: Approximately £0.94
Now, that’s quite a difference!
The original recipe says eight servings, but I managed four generous portions from my dish.
And this is exactly why I wanted to include real-life serving costs in my reviews.
A recipe might technically divide into eight pieces, but that doesn’t necessarily mean eight pieces will satisfy eight hungry people in our house.
But What About the Actual Shopping Bill?
If you were starting completely from scratch and needed to buy every full packet, the estimated shopping bill would be:
| Product | Pack Price |
|---|---|
| ASDA White Bloomer — 800g | £1.44 |
| ASDA Baking Spread — 500g | £1.55 |
| ASDA Light Brown Sugar — 500g | £2.00 |
| ASDA Medium Eggs — 12 pack | £2.85 |
| ASDA Semi Skimmed Milk — 6 pints | £2.45 |
| Madagascan Vanilla Extract — 60ml | £1.30 |
| Ground Sweet Cinnamon — 38g | £1.00 |
| Silver Spoon Icing Sugar — 1kg | £2.65 |
| Full Shopping Basket | £15.24 |
Now, £15.24 sounds considerably more expensive than £3.75, doesn’t it?
But this is another good example of why the two figures are worth showing.
You’re not using the entire loaf, all twelve eggs, the full bottle of vanilla or even most of the cinnamon.
All those remaining ingredients can go towards other meals and baking adventures.
And considering most of these are fairly standard cupboard and fridge ingredients, there’s a good chance you might already have several of them at home.
My Budget Verdict: At an estimated 94p per generous portion, I think this is a reasonably affordable option for a special family breakfast.
Budget note: Prices are based on online listings checked in October 2026, rather than my till receipt. Cinnamon, the tablespoon of brown sugar and icing sugar have been converted to approximate gram amounts for costing. Figures are estimates, rounded for display, and don’t include electricity or appliance running costs.
⏰ The Real-Life Timings
Ah yes.
The original recipe says 40 minutes total.
Which sounds absolutely lovely for a breakfast that involves chopping bread, melting butter, preparing a custard mixture and baking everything together.
Here’s how my morning actually went:
7:05am — Started preparing the ingredients.
7:28am — Finished preparation.
7:30am — Casserole went into the oven.
8:20am — Finally finished baking.
My Actual Timings
Preparation: 23 minutes
Cooking: 50 minutes
Total elapsed time: 1 hour 15 minutes
So, not quite the speedy 40-minute breakfast originally advertised!
To be fair, all the preparation steps were really straightforward. There was nothing particularly difficult or fiddly about making this one.
But when you’re starting with an actual loaf of bread rather than having everything conveniently measured and chopped for you, those extra minutes soon add up.
And the oven?
Well, we already know my oven has been making some rather questionable life choices lately.
As usual, I ended up turning the temperature up towards the end of cooking to help everything along.
At this point, I’m beginning to think my oven and I are in a very one-sided relationship.
🧈 Starting with the Brown Sugar Base
The first proper cooking stage involved melting the baking spread and stirring in the light brown sugar.
The recipe then calls for this mixture to be spread across the bottom of the baking dish before adding the bread.
This was straightforward enough, and I followed the original measurements of 113g baking spread and 200g brown sugar.
There’s something rather promising about starting a breakfast recipe with melted butter (or baking spread, in my case) and brown sugar.
You already know it’s going to be a sweet one.
🍞 Building the Casserole
Once the brown sugar base was ready, I added the cubed white bloomer.
I used the original 227g bread measurement and spread the pieces throughout the dish, over the buttery sugar mixture.
Next came the egg mixture.
I whisked together the six eggs, semi-skimmed milk, vanilla extract and one teaspoon of cinnamon.
Again, nothing particularly complicated here.
Once combined, I poured it over the bread, making sure everything was covered.
And yes, I completely forgot to photograph the actual pouring stage.
Food-blogger brain was apparently concentrating on getting breakfast made rather than remembering every planned photograph.
Never mind!
Finally, I sprinkled over the remaining cinnamon and additional tablespoon of light brown sugar.
At this stage, everything was looking promising.
Time to bake!
🔥 Into the Oven
The original recipe recommends baking the casserole for approximately 25–30 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
Mine took considerably longer.
It went into the oven at 7:30am and didn’t finish cooking until 8:20am.
That’s 50 minutes in total.
I also turned the oven temperature up towards the end, as I often seem to be doing lately.
Eventually, the top became beautifully browned, with the bread developing a lovely golden colour and darker cinnamon patches.
And visually?
I was pretty pleased with it.
There was just one little issue.
🤔 The Mystery of the Liquid at the Bottom
Now, here’s where things got interesting.
Despite the casserole spending 50 minutes in the oven, there was still quite a noticeable amount of liquid sitting underneath the bread.
And I wasn’t entirely sure whether that was supposed to happen.
Was it the bread?
Was there too much liquid for the amount of bread used?
Did switching from butter to baking spread make a difference?
Or was the mixture underneath simply the buttery brown sugar base turning into a sauce?
I followed the original ingredient measurements and method, so it wasn’t a case of accidentally adding extra milk or forgetting an ingredient.
Looking back at the recipe, it does use 480ml milk and six eggs with just 227g bread, so there’s quite a generous amount of custard mixture involved.
It also starts with a substantial butter-and-brown-sugar base, which could explain at least some of the syrupy liquid underneath.
I can’t say for certain which part was responsible, especially as I used a softer white bloomer rather than the original French bread.
Either way, although the top looked lovely, the finished casserole was definitely wetter underneath than I expected.
Thankfully, despite the extra liquid, it still tasted really nice!
🍽️ The First Taste
Now for the important part.
After all that baking and wondering what was going on underneath the bread, was it actually worth making?
Yes!
Despite the excess liquid, I really enjoyed it.
The cinnamon and vanilla worked nicely together, and the bread had developed a lovely golden topping.
The buttery brown sugar base also gave the dish plenty of sweetness, so the overall combination felt like a proper breakfast treat rather than ordinary toast.
I finished it with a dusting of Silver Spoon icing sugar, as suggested in the recipe.
Because if we’re already having a sweet breakfast casserole, we might as well commit.
The Texture
This was probably the most interesting part of the finished dish.
The top was nicely browned, while underneath everything was much softer and wetter.
I don’t necessarily mind a soft French toast texture, but I would have preferred the bottom to be a little less liquid-heavy.
It’s definitely something I’d like to experiment with next time.
The Flavour
No complaints from me here!
The cinnamon, vanilla and brown sugar made a lovely combination, and overall it was a really enjoyable sweet breakfast.
So even though the texture wasn’t quite what I’d expected, the flavour was certainly worth keeping.
👦 The Boys’ Verdict
Now for our usual household review panel!
And this breakfast received a slightly mixed response.
Big Boy
His official verdict was:
“Yeah, that was nice.”
And he backed that up with a completely cleaned-out bowl.
So I think we can safely count that as a success!
My Spud
Spud wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about this one.
He only ate approximately half of what was in his bowl, and I don’t think it was because I’d given him too much.
I suspect he simply wasn’t particularly keen on it.
He didn’t give me much of a verbal review this time, but leaving half his breakfast behind probably tells me enough.
So, unlike Big Boy’s clean-bowl approval, this one doesn’t seem to have won Spud over.
You win some, you lose some!
👩🍳 What I’d Change Next Time
Although I enjoyed the casserole, there are definitely a few things I’d experiment with before making it again.
Try a Different Bread Preparation
After revisiting the original recipe on Belle of the Kitchen, I discovered something rather interesting.
Ashlyn actually recommends using French bread that’s dry rather than too soft, as this helps it absorb the mixture without becoming overly soggy.
She even suggests leaving the cubed bread out overnight, for approximately 12 hours, to help it dry out before baking.
Now I’m wondering whether using my white bloomer without allowing it to dry out first contributed to the excess liquid underneath!
Next time, I’d definitely try this little preparation tip before changing any of the original ingredient quantities.
Investigate the Liquid
This is definitely my biggest question from the first attempt.
I’d like to work out whether the liquid was mostly the melted brown sugar base or whether the bread simply wasn’t absorbing enough of the egg mixture.
I’d also check that the custard in the centre was properly set rather than relying solely on how brown the top looked.
If it still turns out particularly wet, then adjusting the balance of bread and custard might be worth testing.
Try the Overnight Version
The original recipe includes a make-ahead option where you assemble everything the night before and refrigerate it until morning.
I actually think that could be worth trying.
Not only would it save time first thing in the morning, but it would give the bread longer to absorb the custard mixture.
Whether it would solve my particular texture issue remains to be seen, but it’s an experiment I’m rather tempted by.
🔁 Would I Make Alice’s Basket Again?
Yes, I would!
Despite the rather mysterious amount of liquid underneath, this was still a really enjoyable breakfast.
The preparation was straightforward, the ingredients were easy to find, and the finished flavour was lovely.
It didn’t win over absolutely everyone in the house, but Big Boy enjoyed his, and I certainly enjoyed mine.
I particularly like that the recipe can be prepared in advance, which could make it a really nice option for Christmas morning or a lazy weekend breakfast.
And considering the estimated ingredient cost was around £3.77 for the whole dish, it’s not a particularly expensive breakfast experiment either.
It just needs a little more testing to get the texture exactly how I’d like it.
⭐ Final Rating & Thoughts
Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 4/5
Taste: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 4/5
Ease: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 4/5
Family Approval: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ 3/5
Would I Make It Again? Absolutely — with a few tweaks!
French Toast Casserole was a lovely little weekend breakfast experiment.
It was sweet, full of cinnamon and vanilla, and surprisingly straightforward to prepare.
The only real disappointment was the excess liquid underneath, which I’m still not entirely sure was down to the recipe itself, my ingredient substitutions or a combination of the two.
And while Big Boy gave it his clean-bowl seal of approval, Spud didn’t seem quite as convinced.
But that’s exactly why I enjoy trying and reviewing recipes.
Sometimes everything goes perfectly.
Sometimes you discover something you’d change.
And sometimes you spend fifty minutes baking bread and then find yourself investigating a mysterious puddle of brown sugar liquid before you’ve even finished your morning cup of tea.
Would I make it again?
Absolutely.
And next time, I’ll be paying particularly close attention to that bread-to-custard balance!
💬 Come & Chat
Have you ever made a French Toast Casserole?
And if you have, here’s something I’d genuinely love to know…
Is yours supposed to have a little syrupy liquid underneath, or does it usually come out completely set?
I’d love to hear how you make yours, especially if you’ve tried preparing it the night before.
Let me know in the comments! ❤️
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