Canyon Bakehouse Gluten Free Heritage Style Bread

Say goodbye to little loaves my friend. These Canyon Bakehouse Heritage Style Wide Loaf breads are BIG deal. At a whopping 24 oz., you’re going to run out the door to buy it. Also, making a wider loaf of bread isn’t as easy as you think. It’s not as simple as using a bigger pan. Gluten-free bread dough needs walls to climb up, to adhere too. That’s why most loaves are smaller. The bakers at Canyon Bakehouse put their heart, soul and energy into creating this Heritage Style line. They created two flavors – Whole Grain and Honey White.

The Easiest Overnight Gluten Free Blueberry French Toast Casserole

You will love how easy this dish is to put together. Cube your bread, dump half of it into a greased dish, and then dump your blueberries on top. Next, distribute the cream cheese chunks evenly. Finally, fill in with the rest of the cubed bread, and dump the egg + milk custard over the whole dish. Wrap in plastic wrap, stick it in the fridge, and get a good night’s sleep!

**Special note- It’s important to pull your casserole dish out at least 3o minutes before you put it in the oven. When cold dishes are put into a hot pre-heated oven, your dish may break / shatter. Therefore, make sure to plan time to allow your casserole dish to come to room temperature. On a side note, I LOVE my Staub baking dishes. This oval dish is part of a 3 piece ceramic set, and I use it all the time. 

Should I Use Fresh or Frozen Blueberries?

You can use frozen in the casserole, but I choose to use fresh. However, frozen blueberries “bleed” into the custard as the casserole sets up overnight. It just looks “neater” with fresh blueberries. However, frozen blueberries are often cheaper. So feel free to do whichever works better for you. 

Can I Make This French Toast Casserole Without Dairy?

Canyon Bakehouse Heritage Style Bread contains no dairy. This recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups milk. If you can’t consume dairy, almond milk or rice milk should work just fine. I don’t have much experience with dairy free cream cheese. In Go Dairy Free’s review of The Best Dairy-Free Cream Cheese Alternative Taste Test, she recommended Kite Hill Cream cream cheese. She stated it held up well in baked recipes. 

Can I Make This French Toast Casserole Without Eggs?

Canyon Bakehouse Heritage Style Loaf bread contains egg as an ingredient. You should be able to use a different egg free bread. However, my recipe uses 8 fresh eggs. I haven’t tried an egg substitute. Therefore, I’d recommend making a recipe specifically written without eggs. Just What We Eat’s Vegan French Toast Casserole would be a good option. 

Don’t Skip the Homemade Blueberry Sauce

While you can serve this gluten free blueberry french toast casserole with simple maple syrup, the homemade blueberry sauce takes this dish over the top. It cooks in about 15 minutes, and you can prepare it while your casserole bakes. If you have leftover blueberry sauce, it pairs great with plain Greek yogurt. 

How to Handle Leftovers

Refrigerate leftovers and eat within 2 to 3 days. I reheat individual servings in the microwave, usually for at least 1 minute. Since microwave wattage varies, the time you need to reheat your casserole may vary. 

More Blueberry and Brunch Recipes

Need more breakfast or brunch recipes? Visit my post about gluten free brunch casseroles and dishes. Looking for more gluten free blueberry recipes? Check out my recipe for grain free blueberry pie, or blueberry zucchini bread. For muffins, try The Gluten Free Austrian’s Gluten Free Blueberry Muffin recipe. 

Gluten Free Blueberry French Toast Casserole Recipe

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Overnight Gluten Free Blueberry French Toast Casserole

This easy gluten free blueberry french toast casserole will impress everyone at your dinner table!

Course Recipes

Keyword blueberry casserole, gluten free breakfast casserole, gluten free brunch, overnight casserole

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Chill Time 8 hours hours

Total Time 9 hours hours 25 minutes minutes

Servings 8 servings

Author Margaret Clegg

Ingredients

• 8 slices gluten free Canyon Bakehouse Heritage Style Bread cubed
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 8 oz pkg cream cheese cubed
• 8 eggs beaten
• 1 1/2 c milk of your choice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Blueberry Sauce

• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup blueberries can be frozen
• 1 tbsp butter

Instructions

• Place brick of cream cheese in freezer, and allow to harden. This makes it easier to cut. Cut into cubes once firm.
• Lightly grease an 11 x 7 oval baking dish
• Cut 8 slices of Canyon Gluten Free Heritage Style White or Whole Grain bread into 1 inch cubes.
• Arrange half of bread cubes into bottom of baking dish.
• Spread 1 cup of blueberries on top of bread chunks, followed by the cubed cream cheese, and then the rest of the bread cubes.
• In a large bowl, whisk eggs, milk, vanilla, syrup and cinnamon. Once combined, pour over casserole.
• Cover casserole with sarah wrap, and place in fridge overnight.
• The next morning, remove casserole from refrigerator, at least 30 minutes prior to baking. You want the dish to come to room temperature before putting into the oven. If you don't wait, it could cause your dish to crack in the oven, from the sudden and drastic change in temperature.
• Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Remove plastic wrap from chilled casserole, and then cover with aluminum foil.
• Cover baked for 40 minutes
• Remove foil, and bake for another 30 minutes.
• While casserole is baking, prepare blueberry sauce. Combine sugar, cornstarch and water in a medium pot. Stir until cornstarch is dissolved.
• Bring to a simmer, and heat for 3-4 minutes to dissolve the sugar.
• Add 1 1/2 cups of blueberries (either fresh or frozen.), and simmer for 10 minutes, until berries burst and sauce starts to thicken.
• Remove sauce pan from heat, and add 1 tbsp butter.
• Once casserole is finished baking, remove from oven, and allow to cool for 5 minutes. (This prevents you burning your mouth!) Serve warm with bueberry sauce on top.

**Canyon Bakehouse was generous enough to send me these loaves of bread. This post also contains Amazon affiliate links. I earn a small percentage for advertising. However, it does not impact your cost. Thank you for supporting my blog. **

Originally Published February 2017

The post Gluten Free Blueberry French Toast Casserole appeared first on MI Gluten Free Gal.

Michigan is the Blueberry State

Confession. I used to hate blueberries. Sad thing, considering “Michigan produces more blueberries than any other state in the nation.” However, over time I matured, as did my taste buds. Thank goodness, because juicy blueberries are the star in this Gluten Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole. Since blueberries are good for your health, this makes this a health food, right? Therefore one can eat multiple pieces, right? Because after you taste this, you’re totally going to want more.

Leftover Gluten Free Pancakes?

I wish I could say I am the brain child behind this beautiful Gluten Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole. In fact, that honor belongs to Annalise from Completely Delicious. I came across her Blueberry Pancake Bake while searching for creative ways to use leftover pancakes. What? Leftover pancakes?  That week I made gluten-free pancakes for a church event, and went overboard in my portions. Like, 30+ pancakes overboard. Go big or go home, right?

Anyway, I found this amazing recipe Annalise created and I updated it to make it gluten-free. Which isn’t hard really. You only make two subs – gluten-free pancakes and gluten-free flour in the streusel. (In addition, Annalise started with blueberry pancakes. I say use whatever leftover pancakes you have.)

How to Make a Gluten Free Streusel Topping

That’s right. This Gluten Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole is covered in the most amazing streusel. Okay, Confession 2 – I totally said “streusel” to my phone to see how to spell it correctly. Is that sad? Does anyone else do that? The placement of the “e” and “u” totally trips me up.

Well, no matter how you spell it, it’s freakin’ delicious. I mean, how can one go wrong with gobs of brown sugar and butter? With this sweet streusel on top, you don’t even need to top this Gluten-Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole with syrup. I mean, you can. No shame from over here if you do. Feel free to let you inner Elf out and coat this bad boy in syrup if you want. Just sayin’ it still tastes AMAZING without it.

How Many Does This Casserole Serve?

This Gluten Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole makes enough for at least 8 servings. Even more if you’re serving it as part of a brunch spread with lots of other goodies.

(Maybe with this homemade gluten-free chicken breakfast sausage?) I hypothesize that you could cut the “custard” recipe in half, use less pancakes, and bake it in a 8 x 8 dish. However, I haven’t tried it.

Looking for something even more decadent? Try my Cream Cheese Stuffed, Overnight Blueberry French Toast Casserole. Craving something to feed a family of two? Try my easy gluten free breakfast casserole for two.

Looking  for a bigger savory breakfast strata? Try this one I made with Schar Artisan Baker bread. Suffice it to say, if you’re looking for breakfast foods, I probably have you covered.

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Gluten Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole

Ingredients

Casserole

• 20 pancakes cut in half
• 6 eggs
• 1 1/2 c milk She used whole milk. I used skim.
• 1 c. heavy cream
• 1/2 c white sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract I use LorAnn Oils vanilla.
• 2 c. frozen blueberries She used 1/2 cup. Not enough blueberries IMO.

Streusel Topping

• 1/2 c. gluten-free flour I used Cup4Cup
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 c. butter cold and cut into cubes

Instructions

• Grease bottom of 9 x 13 casserole dish and line with pancakes, cut side down.Pancakes should be standing up, snuggled next to each other. 
• In a large bowl, mix milk, cream, sugar and vanilla together. Pour custard mixture over pancakes. Distribute blueberries evenly over the casserole. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Or at the very least 3 hours. You want the pancakes to soak up the cream mixture. 
• Remove casserole from refrigerator and preheat oven to 350*. It's important for the casserole to come to room temperature before going into the oven to prevent the dish from breaking. It should rest at least 30 minutes.
• While the oven is preheating, prepare the streusel topping. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt together first, then add butter last. You can "cut the butter in" with a pastry blender or fork. If you have a small food processor, you can mix this in there as well. 
• Distribute streusel evenly over the casserole and bake for 50-60 minutes. Mine browned pretty quickly, so you may want to cover it with foil halfway through baking. 
• Allow to firm up at least 15-20 minutes. 

What’s your favorite breakfast casserole? Do you like meat in your breakfast bakes, or do you prefer to load it up with fruit? Leave me a comment below!

The post Gluten Free Blueberry Pancake Casserole appeared first on MI Gluten Free Gal.