Our church held our Christmas party this year in the morning and had people sign up for breakfast casseroles, fruit and/or milk. LOVED this breakfast idea on a Saturday morning! In looking for a new breakfast dish to make that wasn't the usual sausage and egg dish, I immediately went to My Kitchen Cafe. This blog is great! The author's SIL is a friend of mine from medical school and they are both quite amazing with their dedication to food blogging. So thanks, Melanie for all your hard work. For a picture of this dish, go to her site HERE. I didn't get up quite early enough to bake it and still be on time this morning, so when it was done, I rushed out the door and didn't even have a second to snap a pic of my version.
As for my version... I pretty much doubled the recipe in the same pan because I wanted it to serve more people. This increased the cooking time quite a bit. So instead of using 1 baguette, I used a 1lb. 6oz. Italian bread round loaf (the very dense kind of bread) from my local store's bakery. Also, plan ahead for this recipe, it has to soak for at least 8 hours overnight and bake for over an hour in the morning. Here it goes:
1- 1lb. 6 oz. round dense Italian bread loaf, cut into 1-inch cubes
12 eggs
2 c. milk
1 t. nutmeg
2 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. brown sugar, divided
1 c. chopped pecans, toasted in skillet with 2 t. butter
1 stick butter
4 c. fresh blueberries
Butter or spray 13x9 pyrex pan. Place cubed bread in pan. In a medium-large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, nutmeg, vanilla and 1 c. brown sugar until eggs are beaten slightly. Pour evenly over bread and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight for at least 8 hours or up to 1 day, until most of the liquid is absorbed. I toasted my pecans the night before to save time in the morning.
Preheat oven to 375. Toss the bread a little bit to try to get the cubes on top saturated as well. Evenly distribute blueberries over bread and then sprinkle pecans on top. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and 1/2 c. brown sugar until sugar is dissolved. Pour evenly over dish and cover with foil. Bake at 375 for an hour. Remove foil and continue baking until top is brown, dish is very bubbly and juices from blueberries are seeping out into bread, about 20 more minutes.
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