{Seriously So Scrummy. . .}

The title of this post is for those who love the show "New Girl" and if you don't love it or know it..watch it on Hulu and you will learn to love one of TVs best shows...

It seems that I have been on a recipe kick lately based on my blog posts, but one of my new year resolutions is to be better about "planning" meals and sitting down for family meals. My boys are still fairly young, but I feel like my excuse of "it is hard to cook with babies under my feet and my kids never eat what I make..." is starting to run out. Truth is, they still don't eat a lot of what I make, but they DO seem to enjoy sitting down at the table and talking about how they are saving their money so that they can go to outer space - dinner table conversations are priceless and a must have in this busy world.

Over Christmas, I was at my parent's house and one of our family traditions is to have a Christmas Brunch rather than a Christmas Dinner. This works out great because everyone is usually still on an adrenaline rush after opening presents and let's face it, kids are worthless little people by dinner time so its better to get them at their good hour if you are planning a sit down meal with a large group of people.

As one of contributions to the brunch, I made Baked French Toast, compliments of The Pioneer Woman. The Pioneer Woman is one of my heroes. If you don't know of her, get to know her. Her recipes are all a success and her life stories and photos are wonderful.

This is a recipe that was seriously so good I had to share it with you because I felt bad not sharing it. Not kidding - probably one of the best things I have ever made, hands down. I felt like Paula Deen a little bit when I made this, and that feeling felt good. This is a great recipe because you can pretty much do all of the prep the night before and then just throw the topping on top when you are ready to bake in the morning (or evening, I don't judge on breakfast for dinner - one of my favs).

More importantly, if you want to impress your husband (or wife) on the weekend, prep this bad boy for breakfast and let them wake up to the smell of absolute wonderfulness in the morning - its one to impress!



View more photos here!

Ingredients:
1 loaf sourdough bread (I used Pepperidge Farm)
8 eggs
2 cups milk (I used 1%)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces

1. Grease a 9x13 pan with butter. Tear bread into bite-size chunks and place evenly in the pan.
2. Mix together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. Pour evenly over bread. Cover tightly and store in the fridge for several hours (I put mine in overnight....it was about 12 hours).
3. In a medium bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until it all looks nice and crumbly (like small pebbles, according to P-Dub). Place in a ziploc bag and put in fridge.
4. When ready to bake, take pan and bag out of fridge. Remove wrap and evenly sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees (or 45 minutes if you like it more soft and pudding-like).

Notes:
You can serve with syrup, but we made a quick glaze with powdered sugar and milk. Delish!
If you don't have brown sugar, mix 1/2 Tbsp. molasses with 1/2 cup sugar until well blended.
Like I said, you can bake it for less time if you like it softer, but I love how the top gets crispy when it's baked for an hour. The underneath part is still somewhat soft. One hour in my 350-oven was just right.
The directions said to scoop out, but I wanted to be able to control the portions so I cut it into 12 servings (they were large, and this is rich, so you could serve other breakfast dishes and use this as more of a side dish and get 24 servings).
Makes 12 large servings

Source: slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

sincerely fabuless, Las Vegas.