Make-Ahead Banana Macademia "French Toast" Bake Recipe

Occasionally, a recipe just leaps right out and cries out to be cooked.  "Make me!  Make me!"

At least, it sure seems that way as I'm reading the recipe and begin craving it and drooling halfway through the ingredients list.  Which is exactly what I started to do when I read through the ingredients for "banana pecan streusal french toast" that I found on the bed and breakfast recipe website.

The thing is, I lacked several of the ingredients for the original recipe -- including pecans (oh the horror!) -- and I didn't want the immensely sugar-laden sauce, so I improvised a little yesterday evening.  If this morning's reaction to the breakfast is any indication, I have baked up a family winner.

The best part of this?  Most of it got made the night before, so all I had to do this morning was pop it in a preheated oven.  When you wake up in as much of a stupor as I do first thing in the morning, that is a serious plus.  The house smelled like heaven while this baked, and all I had to do was keep an eye on the timer and drink my coffee.  Serious breakfast bonus points for that!

Here's what I did:

Banana Macadamia "French Toast" Bake


1/2 a large sourdough round, day old bread works best, cut into bite-sized cubes
10 slices cinnamon bread, cut into bite-sized cubes
(You'll end up with about 8-10 cups of cubed bread, give or take, or a little more depending on the size of your sourdough loaf.)
4 ripe bananas, mashed (1 1/3 C.)
2 (12 oz.) cans evaporated skim milk
3 beaten eggs PLUS 5 egg whites
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. vanilla butter nut extract
2 tsp. cinnamon

In a large bowl stir together bananas, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, vanilla butter nut extract and cinnamon. Process the liquid in batches in food processor to eliminate big banana chunks and make the texture of the liquid a bit smoother (this isn't a requirement, but at our house, texture is important to get wee Peanut's to try new foods -- and this dispersed the yummy banana taste throughout which was a plus for all of us.) Return banana puree to large bowl and add bread cubes, a little at a time, stirring to coat thoroughly. Place liquid and bread cubes in a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan. Pour any remaining banana and egg mixture evenly over bread.  Then make streusel topping.

Streusel mix:
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. melted butter
1/2 c. chopped macadamia nuts, unsalted

For streusel:  in a small bowl combine brown sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Stir in chopped macadamias.

Top bread cube mixture with streusel mix. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, take dish out of refrigerator.  Bake at preheated 350 degree F oven for about 40-45 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

You could serve this with real maple syrup or warmed applesauce (or the two mixed together) if you like, but it was seriously yummy right out of the oven.  It's a sort of breakfast bread pudding.  I doubled the custard part of the mixture from the prior recipe because I had so much extra bread that was going stale and I wanted to use it up.  I might add a little brown sugar to the custard portion the next time just to sweeten it up a little more, since I didn't use the syrupy sauce of the original.

Mr. ReddHedd gave this one a big thumbs up this morning.  We won't be eating it every day, but it may go into the occasional weekend treat rotation.

UPDATE:  This reheats really well in the microwave.  Yay!

(Banana photo via keepon.)