Okay so I already revealed my very clever feast of seven non-fishes for your Christmas dinner, our second type of Christmas dishes we’re rolling out our ideas for your Christmas brunch!
A lot of people I know celebrate Christmas morning with their families, it’s a beautiful time to sit around and exchange gifts in PJ’s with the people you love. And this recipe is absolutely the perfect start to a lovely Christmas morning. It’s sweet, festive and is put together the night before.
The best thing about testing this recipe was the fact that I could basically shuffle downstairs on Saturday morning, stuff it into the oven and go about my morning and have a delicious breakfast in an hour. It takes virtually no effort and even putting it together the night before is a breeze that only takes about 10 minutes of your time.
This recipe is not only easy, beautiful and festive, but it’s also seriously delicious and pulls this off without being too full of sugar and without even using real cream cheese! Of course, if you’re not vegan you can make that switch, but I’m telling you this vegan cream cheese is ballin!
The cranberries when cooked down become sweet, the vegan cream cheese adds creaminess to every other bite, and the orange flavor adds the perfect tanginess. You can choose to top it with the cranberry orange sauce, or just more syrup, it’s your Christmas brunch party!
The best part here is that this dish is so easy that even if you’re not throwing a brunch get together or cooking for a crowd, you can make it just for your family for a beautiful treat when cooking breakfast. I know in my family, we never really ate breakfast on Christmas morning, my mom hosted dinner so we usually had to open gifts and then get right into cleaning aggressively. If this is your situation, this dish will be a nice treat with very minimal effort.
Let’s get the holiday partying start people!
Lots of love,
Jackie
- French Toast Casserole
- 1 14oz block extra firm tofu
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp salt
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 loaf brioche or challah bread, sliced into blocks
- 1-2 tbsp butter
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- 2 oranges, peeled and sliced
- ½ cup orange juice
- 1 cup almond milk
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- Cranberry sauce
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- 2 tsp orange zest (about 1 orange)
- ½ cup orange juice
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- Prepare the cream cheese first by squeezing all the water out of the tofu using a tea towel. Transfer the dry tofu to a high speed blender and add in the vinegar, lemon juice, salt, maple syrup and cinnamon. Blend on high until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and place in the fridge to chill.
- Next prepare the french toast. Butter the pan and place the sliced bread into the buttered pan. Add the cranberries and orange slices in with the bread and toss until it's even. In a medium bowl, whisk together the orange juice, almond milk, syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg until combined. Pour the wet mix over the bread. Cover with foil and leave to soak overnight.
- The next day when you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Remove the foil from the casserole, drop in dollops of the cream cheese evenly spaced apart across the casserole. They should only be about an inch apart.
- Recover with the foil and bake in the oven for one hour. br]
- Serve with syrup, or make the cranberry sauce. To make the sauce but the cranberries, orange zest, orange juice and maple syrup and bring the mixture a boil. Reduce and simmer for 15 minutes until the cranberries are cooked down and whisk to make sure it's fully combined.
