Blueberry Cream Cheese Baked French Toast

Can you say that title really fast?

So I am in love with this recipe. I found a couple of baked French Toast recipes online last week after trying to find a solution to my busy Sunday mornings. I cook a big breakfast, since our church service runs into lunch time, but it can be overwhelming to do that plus get 4 kids ready...not to mention that I try to at least shower before church ;)

Anyways, all the recipes sounded good, but some seemed to have too much sugar, some not enough flavor...some too many eggs..you get the idea. So anyways, I concocted something pretty darn good and thought I would share it. This will be made the night before and baked in the morning or you could totally assemble this early on in the day and have for dinner. I'd do it.

So first I made an "Egg Bread" in my bread machine...any kind of bread will do. Just make sure its a heartier type bread. If you want the recipe, leave me a comment and I'll post it for ya.

So take your bread, cut it into cubes and put it into a well oiled or sprayed 13x9 pan like this (just put about half of it in there, your gonna make two layers):

Once you've done that, you add whatever fruit/s you happen to have on hand. My local Sprouts had an awesome deal on blueberries last week, so I stocked up! So after you add the fruit, you just strategically or not so strategically place dollops of cream cheese around.  Then put another layer of your bread and then more fruit and cream cheese till your out of both. I used a pound of blueberries and 8 ounces of cream cheese in mine. You don't have to be that drastic, if you dont wanna  :p

So after you've done that, take 6 eggs, 1 1/2 cups of milk, some vanilla extract we like alot) and a 1/2 cup of maple syrup  (not that yucky high fructose stuff either...reallllll maple syrup or use the other stuff at your own risk ;p) Mix it all up and pour evenly over the bread/ fruit mixture. Smoosh it all down really good into the pan so everything fits.

Stick this in the fridge overnight or for at least 6 hours or so for all the liquids to be sucked up by the bread. Then when you are ready to eat it, stick it into a 350 degree oven covered until the last 10 minutes or so (mine baked for 30-40 mins) so that the maple syrup in the recipe can get the bread sorta carmelized. I sprinkled mine with a bit of cinnamon when I pulled it out of the oven to rest for about 10 mins too.

Pour on a little more syrup and you are ready to go!

Enjoy!!!