Millie Peartree’s Baked Strawberry French Toast Will Please the Whole Family
French toast — golden brown, chewy, and cinnamon-y sweet — is lovely. But it’s even better (and easier to make) when you bake it in a casserole dish and serve everyone at once. Millie Peartree, a soul food chef and comfort food pro, shared her recipe for Baked Strawberry French Toast, which combines fresh sliced strawberries, luxurious eggy custard, and light fluffy challah bread into an amazingly simple yet sophisticated breakfast upgrade. The baking dish also doubles as a storage and reheating vessel. Too easy!
Chef Millie’s original recipe uses chocolate, but as an occasional heartburn sufferer herself, she knows that chocolate can be a trigger for other sufferers. So she often makes heartburn-friendly swaps in the kitchen or counts on PEPCID AC® Max for fast-acting heartburn relief. To help heartburn sufferers avoid the discomfort that comes from eating trigger foods, she made one simple adjustment here that’s every bit as tasty as the original. Strawberries do the trick beautifully, and to show how easy it is to make a dish heartburn-friendly, Chef Millie came to the studio to prepare her Baked Strawberry French Toast and share the power of heartburn-friendly swaps.
Enjoy Comfort Food Comfortably
For additional insight, Chef Millie brought along Dr. Samantha Nazareth, a gastroenterology specialist who regularly helps people treat their heartburn. Together, Chef Millie and Dr. Nazareth gave a refresher on trigger ingredients and how to cook around them. And because Chef Millie appreciates the occasional indulgence, she knows she can just reach for PEPCID AC® Max when heartburn does arise. PEPCID AC® Max starts working in as little as 15 minutes and controls acid all day or all night*, so it never hurts to keep it handy.
See how Chef Millie puts together her inventive twist on a breakfast classic, and leave with some quick tips for making any dish more heartburn-friendly.
Baked Strawberry French Toast
Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 40 minutes to 45 minutes
Serves 6 to 8
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
Cooking spray or butter, for coating the pan
- 16 ounces
unsliced day-old challah or sourdough bread
- 12 ounces
fresh or thawed frozen strawberries
- 2 teaspoons plus 1 teaspoon
ground cinnamon, divided
- 1 tablespoon
granulated sugar
- 8
large eggs
- 1
medium orange (optional)
- 2 cups
whole milk
- 3/4 cup
maple syrup
- 1/2 cup
heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon
kosher salt
Instructions
Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350ºF. Coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray or butter.
Cut 16 ounces challah or sourdough bread into 1-inch cubes (about 10 cups). Trim and dice 12 ounces strawberries into 1/2-inch pieces (about 2 cups). Stir 1 teaspoon of the ground cinnamon and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar together in a small bowl.
Place 8 large eggs in a large bowl and whisk until frothy. Finely grate the zest of 1 medium orange (about 1 tablespoon) into the bowl if desired. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 2 cups whole milk, 3/4 cup maple syrup, 1/2 cup heavy cream, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and whisk until combined.
Add the bread and strawberries and gently stir until evenly coated. Pour into the baking dish and spread into an even layer. Sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Bake until the top and edges are golden brown and the custard is set, 40 to 45 minutes.
Recipe Notes
Recipe copyright © 2021 by Millie Peartree. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
*Based on 9-hour acid control studies during the day and 12-hour acid control studies during the night. Acid control does not imply symptom relief.