The Ultimate Holiday Breakfast: French Toast Casserole | America’s Test Kitchen (S24 E21)
Making French toast even easier starts with a cast-iron skillet.
Get our Cast Iron French Toast Casserole recipe:
Get exclusive access to every recipe, review, and more:
Sign up for our free newsletters to receive more delicious recipes, cooking tips, and exclusive content:
ABOUT US: The mission of America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Founded in 1992, the company is the leading multimedia cooking resource serving millions of fans with TV shows (America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country, and America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation), magazines (Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country), cookbooks, a podcast (Proof), FAST channels, short-form video series, and the ATK All-Access subscription for digital content. Based in a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot test kitchen in Boston’s Seaport District, ATK has earned the trust of home cooks and culinary experts alike thanks to its one-of-a-kind processes and best-in-class techniques. Fifty full-time (admittedly very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques. Learn more at
If you like us, follow us:
You forgot to add a little vanilla to the custard.
Too sweet
I'd scatter cooked, crumbled breakfast sausage between the layers. Bacon would be good too. You forgot the maple syrup.
That doesn’t appeal at all, the result is not crusty like real grilled French toast and it’s not fluffy and pillowy like bread pudding either. This is not something I would serve.
Actually my friends say it's looking more like the movie "Single White Female." Whose character gets to steal her friend's upper class life and look while pushing her down to the underclass with a poorer less prestigious life?
I am a lifelong fan of ATK and watch every week's episode. With that said, am I the only person bothered by the area at the top of the screen that didn't get any butter, sugar, or custard? They'd going to be a semi-flavorless dry slice of French toast for some unfortunate diner.
I would brush each slice with the melted butter, use a shaker to evenly dispense the sugar, and a ladle to pour the custard.
Can’t wait to cook this !!!
I think some dried fruit like raisins would be great in there. Maybe a sweet cream cheese frosting drizzled upon the top.
OMG, Keith, I'm salivating over this!🤤
That is NOT French Toast.
Oh I love Bridget😍
Why does bro look like a literal greek god?😂 And I have never seen Bridget thirst over someone but kudos to her, she has a fine taste. Julia on the other hand… 😂
No maple syrup?
Great idea.
I usually make a semi complicated over night French toast for Christmas. As I was looking up the ingredients form my grocery list I saw my recipe for French toast casserole and thought I’d make that instead this year and then I saw this video.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I’ve been making French toast casserole every Christmas morning for years. I put it in the oven while we opens presents. Of course mine is a slightly different recipe, and I used a loaf pan instead of cast iron.
Bridget is kinda hot
Very unique!
Go to recipe for me, I’m tired of being last to eat when feeding multiple people
No syrup?
I would spread raspberry jelly on each piece before assembling ❣️
I'm glad I found this recipe, in time for Christmas Day menu planning. Every breakfast casserole type dish I've ever had, was way too heavy on the egg and the custard, and was basically more of a bread pudding than anything else. Which isn't in itself a bad thing, I have had good bread putting, and I have had bad. I just don't want something for breakfast, calling itself a casserole, that has eight or 10 or 12 eggs in it. This looks perfect. But I'm not sure about is the way I'm supposed to cut the potato bread to fit in the skillet. I never was very good at Tetris as a kid.
I really enjoy advice from America’s test kitchen… so, I installed your app and realized now that it’s behind a paywall, where I have to pay $10 a month or $50 a year. This is misleading, talking about the app without mentioning the fact that it’s only accessible to members… one of the key things you guys have is your reputation, and your apparent honesty… try not to do things like this, it can damage your reputation. If only a little.
This is such a fantastic recipe. I'm gonna make this straight away, the only thing I would say is even though I love almonds, I would not put them on this. It almost became a coffee cake or something. Which is absolutely fine but an entirely different baked entity ..almonds baked into my French toast. naaa
Plus I miss the vanilla
But as always Thank you guys for making a great recipe. ATK fan always ❤ love you guys
Looks like a bread pudding to me, although not so soggy. I bet it's good.
Dude obviously never played Tetris. The game features zero triangles.
I’m curious if some dried cranberries would be a nice addition to contrast the richness and spices of this dish
The first recipe I ever developed on my own, over 30 years ago, was called "Peach Melba French Toast Bread Pudding". Congratulations, you have pretty much just recreated it, minus the sliced peaches and raspberry compote topping. I have been making variations of it all along. The only real difference here is that I use chunks of bread instead of slices, and toss the bread with the custard in a mixing bowl before pouring it into the pan, which is kind of no difference, at all.
This is bread pudding aka breakfast strata.
What size skillet?
Just your typical bread and butter pudding – in spite of what you believe.
zamzam water
I’d be sorely tempted to scale this up to three layers. There’s plenty of room in the skillet. Et voilá!
I'd have to cut the sugar and butter by half and then I'd eat it.