Baked Mango French Toast
Baked Mango French Toast
Baked mango French toast is my new favorite way to make (and enjoy) French toast. Inspired by a baking method I read in a previous issue of Cooks Illustrated, I doubt I’ll ever go back to making French toast the old fashioned way.
I shared a picture of this heavenly French toast on our Instagram a couple of weeks ago, but opted to hold it back just in time for Father’s Day, which is this coming weekend. I seriously don’t know where this year has gone, I’m constantly thinking it is still May when it is clearly not.
The last couple of weeks I have been breakfast obsessed, which is strange because I am typically so not a breakfast person outside of my baked German apple pancake or baked strawberry oatmeal… but in the last month alone I have shared two breakfast recipes not counting today’s baked French toast recipe.
I used to be a believer in the only way to make a good French toast was by letting it soak overnight. Nope. Not anymore. I want less mess and more texture in my French toast, which makes this version perfect. I know we food bloggers have a tendency to use that word a lot, but since I started making French toast this way I have not looked back.
The most important element to this French toast is using a high quality loaf of country white bread that’s a day or two old. It should slightly flake as you cut it into slices. If you use plain boring sandwich bread, it’s going to end up soggy and very bland.
What’s so different/unusual about this baked mango French toast is how it’s prepared and cooked in the oven. After you mix up your custard and pour it into a rimmed cooking sheet that’s been sprayed with nonstick spray, arrange the slices of bread on the sheet, gently pressing the slices into the custard mixture to soak up as mush as each slice can. Make sure you leave enough space between slices that you can flip the slices with your fingers… but not yet.
After about a minute, with your fingers you will flip the bread slices in the order that you originally placed them down. Divide the mango mixture evenly over the tops of the slices of bread. Boom ready to be baked.
Then place the rimmed baking sheet on the lowest rack in your oven. After about 20 or so minutes you will then transfer the sheet to the highest rack in your oven with the broiler on. Once the French toast has begun to turn into a beautiful shade of golden brown, the French toast is done.