I won’t be with my mom on Mother’s Day (this Sunday, May 11; of course you knew that). But I know exactly what I’d make her: this French toast casserole. Is this Lidey Heuck recipe essentially bread pudding by another name, an easier way to prepare French toast for a crowd, a two-handed deep dish of vanilla-scented, custardy generosity? Yes, yes and yes.
Naturally, I’d tailor the dish to her tastes. I’d use brioche, namely the coconut brioche from the Vietnamese bakery down the street (Mom loves coconut). I’d skip the cinnamon in the casserole and topping and instead use a bit of ground ginger, definitely some cardamom (Mom loves cardamom). I should have mentioned, too, that the brioche would have been discounted because it was a day past its sell-by date; this recipe is a great use of any stale-ish bread you have lying around (Mom loves not wasting food).
Serve your French toast casserole with flowers and a handwritten card for full points. And don’t forget to clean up afterward.
Featured Recipe
French Toast Casserole
What else does Mom want this Mother’s Day? I asked some of the moms of New York Times Cooking what they would like prepared for them:
Sausage gravy and biscuits with fruit salad to balance it (me) out. MARGAUX LASKEY
I want to watch my 3-year-old son, Seb, make Andy Baraghani’s excellent sticky miso salmon bowl because I love every step that it entails. (The dish is known as “Sweet Sebby Salmon” in our house; sorry, Andy!) First, Seb does a little dance to the melody of our Zojirushi rice cooker. Then, he mixes together the glaze for the salmon. To serve, I dole out some homemade kimchi while Seb proudly chops his own cucumbers. I melt! ALEXA WEIBEL
I will be requesting/demanding Yossy Arefi’s lemon raspberry cornmeal cake, which keeps well enough to snack on the whole week that follows. ADINA STEIMAN
This furikake snack mix, please! So that we can all eat it together while watching a movie or bingeing a series. GENEVIEVE KO
