Gluten Free French Toast Casserole Adapted from America's Test Kitchen

This recipe is from America's Test Kitchen's Family Cookook.  We adapt lots of recipes from this book to be gluten free.  It is not hard as many people may think.

This recipe is on pg 237 nd they call it Make-Ahead French Toast Casserole with Caramel-Pecan Topping.  We adapted the recipe to be gluten free and nut free because our house also has a nut allergy.

This recipe has to be prepared the evening before!

Ingredients:

Casserole

• 1 loaf of your favourite gluten free bread.  We used an All But Gluten cinnamon raisin that we had as a sample.
• 8 large eggs
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cups half and half (we just used more whole milk because we didn't want to buy two milks)
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Topping

• 12 tbsp / 1.5 sticks of unsalted butter
• 1 1/3 cup of packed brown sugar
• 3 tbsp corn syrup (we omitted this, not necessary)
• 5 oz pecan.  We substituted with coconut to make it nut free.

Directions for the Casserole - This needs to be prepared the night before

1. Preheat oven to 325. Layout the loaf of bread on cookie sheets and toast until lightly brown.  This will allow the toast to soak up the batter.  You may need to turn the toast over to ensure it gets toasted all over.  When lightly brown take out of oven and let cool
2. While toast is cooling, grease a 9 by 13 inch baking dish (or similar) with butter.
3. Prepare batter by adding eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large mixing dish and mix vigorously.  NOTE: This is going to make too much for a gluten free loaf, but I don't know how to properly reduce it.
4. Layer the toast in the baking dish tightly.  It should make two layers. You may fall short a little on the second layer because gluten free loaves are sometime smaller.
5.  Poor batter over toast evenly and press down gently to submerge.  I found that the bread tended to float, so I removed some of the batter.  You don't have to poor the whole thing in.  I left about a cereal bowl full out.  Just make sure the dish is filled up enough that the toast s submerged when you gently press down on it.
6. Cover dish and place in fridge
7. Next morning, you will need a few minutes to make the caramel and an hour of baking time for the casserole.
8. Preheat the oven to 325
9. Prepare the caramel by mixing the butter, brown sugar, syrup if used and then coconut.
10. Remove dish from fridge and spread caramel topping mix on top of casserole.
11. Place the dish on a baking sheet and put in oven for about an hour or util it is puffed ad golden.
12. Let cool for 10 minutes and serve