French Toast Casserole

This is a project of The Women Bloggers and Kendal King Group to share the goodness of Nestle Gerber Cereal.

French toast casserole is one of those recipes that’s incredibly comforting. It’s also one of those recipes that are so incredibly easy to make that you are going to ask yourself why you didn’t make it before. Yes, it’s that good and yes, it’s that easy!

This is one of those recipes that asks for things most of you already have in hand, sandwich bread, a splash of milk, two eggs, some fruit, powdered sugar, maple syrup, and for a little extra goodness Gerber MultiGrain Cereal. That’s it. Thicker french toast bread is great but usually we just make it with what we have on hand and that’s regular old bread.  There are no hard to find ingredients in this recipe and definitely, you don’t need to trek to different supermarkets to find the ingredients.  They can all be found at your local Walmart.  {As a side note we are loving our new Walmart Market and can’t wait till they roll out their free order online, drive up, and they’ll load your car service.}

Did you catch that?  Yes, you read it right.  Gerber MultiGrain Cereal is an ingredient in this family friendly, easy-peasy, delicious french toast casserole.  It’s an easy way to sneak in iron, calcium, and other vitamins.

Although this is a partnered post with Gerber, to tell you the truth, I’ve been mixing it in my kid’s applesauce for a long time.  My son, as you may know from other posts, has serious eating issues.  Pickiness to the extreme caused by sensory issues, early untreated heartburn, and allergies to soy and dairy.  That’s our best guess as to the reason but because of his unwillingness to eat the cereal I bought for him…and the oatmeal…and the rice, I wanted to find some use for it because I didn’t want to throw it out.  I started adding a tablespoon here in the applesauce, another in the spaghetti sauce, and another in the casserole.  The only thing my daughter ever noticed it in was yogurt and I still think that was because I wasn’t fully awake and didn’t mix it thoroughly.

Now that my son is a little older and eating a handful of things more than he used to I’ve started sneaking Gerber cereal into the foods he can eat.  Mainly those are carb laden foods so I figure the more nutrition I can sneak in the better.  For instance, those hot chocolate brownie bites I made the other day had a few tablespoons of cereal thrown in to make them a little bit nutritious for him.  It’s so fine that it mixes well into many, many recipes.  Now back to the French Toast Casserole!

After trying a couple of different methods to make them, my favorite one is cutting the bread in half. While a lot of recipes ask for cutting the bread into cubes I found that makes it a bit mushier than I like. So if you don’t like a soggy french toast casserole just cut the bread in half.

Then dunk each slice into an egg, milk, Gerber cereal, and maple syrup mixture and place into your casserole. Dunking each slice guarantees that everything gets coated into the deliciousness and that each slice is full of flavor. However, don’t worry! This step is super quick and it only takes 5 minutes for enough french toasts to feed a family of 4.

Once your casserole is full with french toast, you can pour the remaining mixture on top and take it to the oven as it is or add some toppings. I prefer to bake them with the toppings, basically because I like how the toppings get more delicious with a little bit of oven time. So sprinkle on some powdered sugar, throw your toppings on (I used a frozen berry mix), and bake it for 40 minutes.

Once it’s done serve it in the casserole and you are all set!

French Toast Casserole

• Ingredients:
  –  2 Eggs
  –  ½ Cup milk
  –  ¼ Cup maple syrup
  –  8 Slices of bread
• –  ½ Cup berries (frozen or fresh)
• –  ¼ Cup Gerber MultiGrain Cereal (although the Oatmeal with banana flavoring might be good to try too!)
• –  a little (2 Tbs?) Powdered sugar

• Direction:
  –  Preheat your oven at 350F.
  –  In a bowl mix the eggs, milk, maple syrup, and cereal.
  –  Cut the bread in half, dunk each side into the mix, and take to the casserole.
  –  Once the casserole is filled, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and top it with berries.
  –  Bake for 40 minutes.
  –  Serve and enjoy.

What do you think about #CookingwithGerber?  Give this French Toast Casserole recipe a try and let me know what you think!