Overnight Pumpkin French Toast Casserole — A marinade of pumpkin puree, maple syrup, cinnamon, sugar, and spices coats chunky cubes of bread overnight. The resulting French toast is moist and tender, and bursting with fall flavors!
If a Crockpot is the equivalent of a set-it-and-forget-it dinner solution, this is the parallel equivalent for breakfast.
I’m an advocate of as little as humanly possible to do in the morning and this recipe for french toast pumpkin casserole is one that even I can pull off when I’m bleary-eyed because the work is done the night before.
And ‘work’ is a very loose term because there’s hardly any involved.
Coffee is my usual breakfast of champions and the last thing on my mind on a busy weekday morning when I’m making sure shoelaces are double-knotted and hair is un-knotted is making French toast or pancakes. Cereal, without spilling the milk, is all we can muster here and still get out of the house on time.
If you’re one of those people who makes French toast on weekday mornings, please come to my house because I need your help.
This pumpkin french toast bake was a game changer, though!
This French toast is everything I could want in French toast. The batter took about 90 seconds to whisk together and there was no active work at the stovetop flipping French toast over and risking grease burns on my wrists.
What I loved most about this French toast was how moist it was after it had all night to soak up and bathe in the marinade.
Between the maple syrup in the marinade that’s baked into the bread and then the vanilla maple butter that engulfs it after baking, I was in sticky, sweet, maple syrupy heaven.
The warming spices of cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and cloves complemented the pumpkin and maple and each bite had a distinctive cinnamon-sugar quality, which I loved.
The chunky pieces of bread that I could pull apart, one by one, made me reach for one more piece, and one more piece. It’s the French toast equivalent of monkey bread. Keep the napkins handy and embrace the sticky chunks.
Between the maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon-sugar, and the sweet perfume of baking pumpkin, my house smelled so fabulous that the family set up camp in the kitchen waiting for this to emerge hot from the oven.
Pumpkin French Toast Casserole Ingredients
To make the overnight pumpkin french toast bake, you’ll need the following:
- French bread
- Unsalted butter
- Eggs
- Pumpkin puree
- Milk
- Granulated sugar
- Maple syrup
- Light brown sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Spices (cinnamon, cloves, pumpkin spice)
How to Make Overnight Pumpkin French Toast Casserole
This fall French toast recipe couldn’t be simpler to prepare! Here’s an overview of how the recipe comes together:
The afternoon or evening before you plan to serve the french toast pumpkin casserole:
- Make a marinade of melted butter, pumpkin puree, two eggs, cream, sugars, maple syrup, vanilla, and spices.
- To the marinade, add the cubed bread pieces.
- Toss the bread chunks until they’re all coated (it will seem that the bread is literally drowning in marinade and that there will be no possible way all the liquid will ever be absorbed. Well, bread gets very thirsty overnight and does a marvelous job of drinking up while it waits for you in the covered bowl in your refrigerator until morning when it’s time to bake it.)
In the morning:
- Transfer the drenched bread chunks into a lined 9-by-9-inch pan. I always line my pans with foil to save on cleanup.
- When the bread pieces are in the pan, lightly smoosh them down with a spatula, making sure there aren’t any pieces with corners that are jutting up significantly higher than the other pieces, as those edges and corners will have a tendency to burn so try to keep everything about the same height.
- Bake it for about a half hour but don’t overbake it. When it’s done, the surface of the bread will still appear moist and a bit on the juicy side with some glistening surfaces and not all dried out.
While the French toast is baking, make the vanilla maple butter:
- Whisk the melted butter together with maple syrup and vanilla extract.
- Prior to pouring it over your golden pumpkin-kissed bread chunks, reheat the mixture gently in the microwave for a few seconds if necessary if you like your syrup warmed like I do.
What’s the Best Bread for Overnight French Toast Casserole?
Now’s the time to use the ends of your bread-baking fails! You know, those hard, dense, hockey puck-like loaves of bread that you’ve been making in your bread-baking experiments that for some reason didn’t quite rise as nicely as planned or were as dense as 200-year-old tree trunks. Feel free to use those.
Or, simply buy a one-pound loaf of French bread, a crusty baguette, or a hearty bread from your grocer’s deli and slice about 12 ounces of it, about three-quarters of the loaf, into chunky cubes about two-inches in size.
Don’t slice the cubes too small because they need to be large enough and have enough surface area that the marinade doesn’t transform them into a mushy mess overnight.
Can I Use Regular Sandwich Bread in This Recipe?
No! Do not try this pumpkin monkey bread french toast with the equivalent of white Wonder bread, or even regular sandwich bread that comes in plastic.
Tips for Making Overnight Pumpkin Baked French Toast
Spices: I went heavy-handed on the cinnamon so that it wouldn’t get lost in a sea of other competing flavors, but scale it or the pumpkin pie spice back a bit if you’re not as much of a cinnamon fiend as I am.
Bread: The bread needs to be a hearty, dense, substantially-textured loaf. Stale bread is perfectly acceptable and almost preferred because that renders the bread capable of absorbing all the glorious drippy, saucy, sweet pumpkin and cinnamon-spiced marinade without disintegrating.
To keep vegan: use vegan butter in place of all butter and use two flax eggs in place of the eggs.
To keep gluten-free: use a hearty gluten-free bread. Take care all ingredients used are suitable for your dietary needs.
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Overnight Pumpkin French Toast Casserole
Ingredients
French Toast
- about 8 cups bread, diced in 1 1/2- to 2-inch pieces, or about 12 ounces (French bread, a French Baugette, or a crusty and hearty bakery-style bread is necessary; something that can stand up to overnight soaking without disintegrating)
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- ½ cup milk or cream
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
Vanilla Maple Butter (double the batch if you love syrup)
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ⅓ cup maple syrup
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
For the French toast:
- In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter, about 1 minute. I prefer to brown the butter by heating for about 3 minutes on high power until the crackling and popping has subsided, the butter browned and nutty-smelling; being careful not to burn it browning butter tips here. Allow the butter to cool momentarily so you don't scramble the eggs.
- Add all remaining ingredients to the butter, except for the bread, and whisk until smooth and combined.
- Add the bread cubes and toss gently to coak.
- Cover with plastic wrap and place bowl in the refrigerator overnight, or at least 2 hours so the bread has time to absorb the marinade.
- Before baking, preheat oven to 350F and line a 9-by-9-inch pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
- Transfer bread into baking pan, leaving it fairly loosely piled in the baking pan. Watch any bread corners that are jetting up much higher than the rest of the pieces as they will have a tendency to burn more easily so I push any of them down with a spatula so all pieces are roughly the same height. Scrape out any marinade in the bottom of the bowl and pour that over the bread.
- Bake for about 30 to 38 minutes, or until golden and browned, the marinade has dried out some, taking care not to overbake as you want this moist and coating does not have to be bone dry on all piece.
- Serve immediately with a pat of butter, warm maple syrup, a dusting of confectioners' sugar, or vanilla maple butter.
For the Vanilla Maple Butter
- In a medium microwave-safe bow, melt the butter, about 1 minute on high power; or brown it by heating for about 3 minutes.
- To the melted butter, add the maple syrup, and whisk vigorously until combined.
- Heat for about 30 seconds to warm the mixture and add the vanilla and whisk to combine.
- Pour over French Toast.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More French Toast Recipes:
Cinnamon French Toast Bake — Cinnamon sugar french toast is baked rather than being griddled, which frees you up from having to stand at the stove flipping it. It takes minutes to assemble, and there’s an overnight option!
Baked Bagel French Toast with Maple Glaze — Soft, chewy bagels make the best French toast! So easy, no flipping required, and tastes phenomenally good!!
Caramel Overnight French Toast Casserole — EASY, soft, tender, and decadent French toast that’s coated in caramel sauce!! Assemble it the night before and wake up to an amazing breakfast or brunch that everyone will ADORE!
Overnight Syrup-On-The-Bottom French Toast – Assemble it the night before and wake up to AMAZING French toast the next morning!! An EASY homemade syrup layer on the bottom with super SOFT challah bread on top!
Caramel Apple French Toast Casserole — An EASY recipe with a make-ahead overnight option so it’s perfect for weekend or holiday brunches!!
Overnight Gingerbread French Toast Breakfast Bake – Easy, make-ahead French toast that’s perfect for winter weekends or Christmas morning! Easy, no-flipping-required recipe!
Such a FUN recipe to wake up to!!
Hi Averie! It’s raining up here, can you believe it? Maybe it’s headed down your way next. It’s actually comforting and I’m really excited because the kids have the day off from school so we get to be cozy all day. I’m the same way when it comes to breakfast. I love to bake up a sweet for dessert and bang out a delicious lunch or dinner, but breakfast is just not my thing. If I’m going to make a breakfast treat, then it usually extends into the brunch time arena.
This pull apart bread looks amazing and so rich and gooey, but in a good way. I unlike you would have to go out and buy the bread, because I still have not attempted any bread making. That is next on my list of things to do this winter. I want to make your English muffin loaf because Eli loves a morning English muffin and he would love that bread. I also love this recipe because it’s virtually a make-ahead breakfast treat! I love the ease and simplicity of it.
Did you ever think that you would be the baker queen? You have come up with so many amazing recipes lately that you are blowing me away. I love coming to your site everyday to see what you have whipped up.
Xoxo,
Jackie
It’s been raining here on and off all weekend. Totally a miserable food-photography weekend, among other reasons. Not a rain fan!
Thank you for all the sweet compliments, always! And from your cake making to your soup making to popovers, that English muffin bread I posted is nearly foolproof! Just try it…all you have to lose is like 73 cents worth of flour :)
My word, lady. I’m eating Stove Top Stuffing for breakfast (don’t look at me like that!) and wishing I had this instead. Seriously, You outdid yourself.
I buy 2 boxes of StoveTop per year. My husband LOVES the stuff and I buy 2 before Thanksgiving and dole them out to him and you’d think I’d just made him homemade croissants with hand-churned butter or something :)
Oh man. Usually I’m pretty content with my yogurt-granola-berry parfait in the AM, but now I’m thinking I need to step it up a notch and whip this up. Holy moly. This blows my dinky parfait outta the water!
Well your parfait blows my coffee out of the water, which is my usual go to :)
I haven’t made French toast in at least 10 years–probably because of the time factor and clean up. I remember my mom making an overnight type of French toast, but the recipe called for big thick slices of bread. I like this because all the little pieces get coated in that yummy marinade! One little note about my loaf of bread. I always add a few tsp. of vital wheat gluten per loaf (Hodgson mills or Bob’s Red Mill). It’s supposed to help in the rising process and the majority of my previous breads had whole wheat flour in them (very heavy), so I do believe it helps. That could be why mine puffed up so well. I’ll try my next loaf without it and see what happens.
I have thought about adding VWG to my dough after reading about it for wheat-based loaves. Also bought this new yeast by RedStar called Platinum which is touted as really good for wheat-breads. I havent tried it yet though. And have also been paying closer attn to water temp, knead times, flour amts, really trying to control it all much more. I need to try VWG on my next loaf.
And like you, I havent made French toast in, oh, about 10 years. Seriously maybe when Scott and I were first married I tried to impress him? But it’s been at least a decade b/c the hassle (and same for pancakes) of the cleanup, cooking time, and all that work on a ‘lazy’ weekend morning. Not happening. But this is foolproof and the foil-lined pan makes cleanup a 1 second activity!
My mouth is watering up! I would love to wake up to this french toast…who wouldn’t?! It is a whole lot better than the bowl of cereal that I’m holding right now. :)
Trust me, I am usually not a breakfast maker either. Cereal is our speed!
So irresistible!! Love the fact that you didn’t make the toast too egg-y. (You’re right, everything does taste better when it’s drenched with extra butter and maple syrup.) :D
Everything’s better in extra butter and maple syrup – indeed. Not so much drenched in eggs. I guess I just don’t love eggs THAT much! ha! And thanks for the Pin :)
Yum yum yum! I love that this is an easy night before recipe. I’m a morning person, but fancy breakfast in the morning is sometimes just too much!
easy night before recipes are the only kind I could handle making on busy (or any) mornings!
Oh God, this looks amazing! I made a similar pumpkin bread pudding recipe that was dangerously good. Pumpkin and maple syrup are a match made in heaven. Heck, pumpkin with just about anything is a match made in heaven! Great recipe Averie! :)
I love bread pudding of all kinds. There is something about it…probably b/c it’s so gooey and dense. Just the way I love desserts!
That French toast looks bananas, but I could really go for one of those strawberry jelly rolls with my coffee this morning, too! Lovely photos, as always.
Take white dinner rolls, egg-batter and cinnamon-sugar them, and poke a hole with your finger and scoop in some jelly. The best use of a (boring little) white dinner roll :)
wow this looks so good. I am putting on my mealplan for Saturday breakfast!!!
While I don’t have any immediate plans to make my first bread, it’s comforting to know that such a beautiful and EASY solution for a possible fail exists. A pumpkiny, juicy, moist, and cinnamon-y solution at that. What a beautiful bake Averie! I’ve been loving all your pumpkin recipes. The whole egg things really stands out to me – I cannot stand baked eggs – I love omelets and the like but baked eggs makes me squirmy – something about the spongey consistency. From the minimal prep time to all of those chunky fall apart pieces, this is one breakfast everyone should consider for the holidays! I am all about ease these days too (hence that easy fudge and bark I made recently.) Who has the time, especially with the holidays coming up?
PS: I don’t own a crockpot. I know! I’m totally missing out.
I own a crockpot but I use it like…once a year, maybe? I’ve lived in my current house 18+ mos and have yet to use it in this house. Ahem. I find it’s actually easier to just make what I want to make in 20 mins on the stovetop than fussing around with it for 6 hrs wondering if my settings are right on a crockpot, but that’s just me.
And the whole thing about baked eggs – I never understood why some people put in like a half dozen, Ina Garten style, usage of eggs in some recipes. They have their place but 2 or 3 is my max in any one recipe usually :)
Perfect for guests! I like being able to get up and just have breakfast mostly ready. I think thats why I make so many muffins. This takes it to a whole new level!
Yum yum yum!! I’m also not much of a breakfast person except on weekends and this looks amaaaazing. The perfect way to start any day :-) And I love that it’s make ahead. This would be perfect on Christmas morning! Am I thinking too far ahead?
Not at all! I just posted last week that I am already starting holiday cookie baking. Gotta think 6+ weeks ahead as a blogger. Well, I do. That way I can test, trial, and formulate without stressing. Plus we get to eat Xmas cookies in Oct & Nov. :)
OH my god, this looks AMAZING!!
Thank you & your nutella cheesecake looks pretty amazing as well!
Thanks!