Pull-Apart French Toast Recipe

Whole, round French bread loaf cut into squares, baked and filled with fresh blueberries and strawberries.

Pull Apart French Toast is everything you want for a cozy brunch! Made with a whole loaf of French bread, it's golden and crisp on the outside, soft and buttery on the inside, and infused with an incredible sweet cinnamon flavor.

Serves 6 as part of a larger brunch spread, or 4 if it's the only dish.

Prep Time20

Cook Time55

Soaking Time6

Total Time7 15

Course: Breakfast, Brunch

Cuisine: American

Keyword: French toast to share

Servings: to 6

Calories: 422kcal

Author: Valentina K. Wein

Equipment

Ingredients

1 (1-pound) whole, round/oval loaf of French bread
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
¼ teaspoon kosher salt (use half the amount if using table salt)
3 large eggs
½ cup sugar
½ cup low-fat milk
½ cup half and half
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ cup fresh berries, washed, dried and cut into smaller pieces if large
powdered sugar for dusting
maple syrup for drizzling

Instructions

Make egg mixture. In a small to medium-sized saucepan, whisk the eggs with the sugar and salt until smooth. Then add the vanilla and cinnamon and whisk. Finally, pour in the milk and half and half and whisk until smooth. Place the saucepan over low-medium heat and whisk gently while warming it just enough to dissolve the sugar.This should only take a couple of minutes.
Do not use high heat to dissolve the sugar. We don't want to heat this mixture too long or over heat that’s too high, or the eggs will begin to cook.
Prepare the bread. Use a serrated knife to cut the bread into approximately 1-inch squares, going almost to the bottom, but do not cut all the way through the bread. (For the 1-pound loaf, you'll make about 6 slices in each direction.) Place it in a casserole dish as close to the size of the loaf as possible.
Soak the bread. Use your fingers or a dull knife to pry open each crack and drizzle in the melted butter. Use the entire ½ cup portion here, drizzling very slowly so it makes its way between all of the cracks, and be sure it coats the surface of the soft crumb, and isn't going straight to the bottom.
Now, about ⅓ cup at a time, pour in the egg mixture in exactly the same way. Wait for it to be soaked up by the bread each time before adding more. Once you've used it all, use a spoon to repeat this with any of the mixture that has leaked out into the pan. Keep doing this until it has all been soaked into the bread.
For the most ease, both the melted butter and the egg mixture should be poured from a glass or plastic measuring cup with a spout.
Cover the pan with foil and place it in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours and ideally overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Bake. After the bread has soaked, carefully place it on a parchment-lined sheet pan. It will have spread open a bit. Then, cover it with foil, gently moving the pieces and shaping it back into its original form.
Place in the 350°F preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove the foil and add about half of the berries between the cracks, as evenly as possible. Then use a pastry brush to coat the crust with the remaining tablespoon of melted butter.
Return it to the oven, uncovered, and bake for another 25 minutes. When it's done, it should be golden on top and you shouldn't see any uncooked egg.
Place on a platter, drizzle with maple syrup and dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Notes

Nutritional information is automatically calculated, so it should only be used as an estimate.

Nutrition