French Toast – Slow Cooker Style

Every year we have a “12 Days of Gluttony” at work. Today was my day, and I decided to go with a breakfast dish. The problem was that I didn’t have a lot of time last night to make something extravagant, and I didn’t want to get up super early to make something to take warm to work. So I looked to my handy slow cooker, otherwise known as a crock pot. But what breakfast dish can be made in a slow cooker? French toast of course!

I had to do some searching online for a recipe, and I came across the blog A Year of Slow Cooking. There was a post for a slow cooker french toast, and it looked perfect to take to work. I was a little leary about bread and liquid cooking all night, but it turned out really well. The best part is that it was super easy, and I didn’t have to slave over a hot stove.

French Toast in a Slow Cooker
Ingredients:
1.5 loaves of french bread
1 dozen eggs
2 t vanilla
4 cups of milk (I used 1 cup of heavy cream and 3 cups of regular 1% milk)
1/4 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup walnuts, or other desired nuts (optional)
Syrup

I must warn you that I don’t actually measure things very well, so those measurements are what the recipe says. Unless, I’m doing actual baking like cookies or cake, I tend to just add however much I think works. So the cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla were just dumped in.

Back to the recipe…I greased the sides of the crock pot with Pam, but you could use butter or Crisco. Then, I sliced the bread and layered it all in the crock pot. It actually was a lot of bread and barely fit in there. Next I whisked the remainder of the ingredients, except the syrup, together and poured it on top. I didn’t use the walnuts because there are some co-workers with nut allergies. I turned the crockpot on low for 6 hours and went to bed.

When I woke up the entire house smelled like french toast. I packed up the crock pot and the syrup and headed to work. The bread was almost overflowing the crock pot last night, but it shrank down to about half the size and was a lovely golden brown color. The edges that had sat up against the side were a little crunchy and the middle was soft. After helping me get everything up to the office, I had one of the carpoolers be my taste tester. After pouring some syrup, he dug in. I think it passed.

Sorry, I didn’t take pictures of the final product.