Chocolate Chip French Toast Casserole

Although I try to create mostly gluten-free recipes on the blog so that everyone is included, sometimes I just need a good bit of bread. Yes, you can make this Chocolate Chip French Toast Casserole with gluten-free bread, but don’t hold me to the results. The gluten-free bread I’ve tried in the past has been a bit of a disappointment in all honesty. Maybe you guys in America or wherever have some great GF bread – but I think England is a it behind, feel sorry for the gluten intolerant people on our lil island. First world problems.

French toast has and always will be my favourite food. If I could choose to live off anything – it would be French toast. In the past I’ve found it very hard to replicate the same properties that egg manages to give the stand alone fried bread dish, the closest I have got to the real thing is by using Follow Your Heart Veganegg. However, this very simple baked recipe does the trick for me. The combination of simple ingredients create a perfectly moist, tasty bake that tastes so much like the French Toast I remember. I took inspiration for this dish from my previous Festive French Toast Casserole, swapping out cranberries for chocolate and making a few changes. I can’t recommend enough! Your friends will be impressed!

In the Chocolate Chip French Toast Casserole, I used a two-day-old sourdough baguette. The shape worked well in spiralling the bread around the dish, which is obviously not essential, but who doesn’t love to have aesthetically pleasing food? Also, the sourdough give the perfect French toast base. Sourdough is naturally a lot firmer than regular bread, which works much better for absorbing the mixture in comparison to regular bread. Saying that though, it works with both. So need not worry about whether the recipe will work with a standard stale loaf!

This recipe is all about Zero Waste! It’s a great opportunity to use up unwanted bread and turn it into something beautiful. The only criticism for the recipe in terms of zero waste is the use of tin foil, however, you can now get 100% recycled aluminium foil and can also re-use it yourself several times if you’re careful. This is a great way of sticking to your ethics and using a helpful product without the guilt of what it is doing to the environment!

Whatever the occasion, treat yourself (and maybe your guests) to a hearty, no-waste breakfast or even dessert! Try out the recipe and let me know what you think!