Low carb pan bread baked into a delicious breakfast casserole. Studded with pecans and topped with a rich caramel topping.
I am starting to believe that almost anything is possible on a low carb and gluten-free diet. There are a few things, like really good yeast breads, that might be a little beyond reach at the moment, but I don’t feel much like it’s a “dietary restriction” at all. The more I play around with recipes, the more I believe this to be true. It’s a lot less limiting than I thought when I started out. Even some of my old breakfast favourites, like waffles and french toast, are something I can enjoy. I just have to be prepared to make them in a completely different fashion.
So when Live Better America challenged me to recreate their popular Overnight French Toast in a low sugar, low carb package, my response was “game on”. I knew it wouldn’t be a hard to get the buttery, gooey, caramel-like topping with some of my alternative sweeteners. It was the bread that was the harder part, since I can’t exactly go to the store and grab a loaf. But a quick, lightly sweetened pan bread was just the thing. I actually based it on my Cheesy Skillet Bread, but I skipped the cheese, and added a little sweetener and some vanilla. I then cubed it and let it dry for a few hours in a warm oven and my Overnight French Toast was ready to assemble!
Overnight French Toast Bake – Low Carb and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
Almond Flour Pan Bread:
- 2 cups almond flour
- ½ cup flax seed meal
- ⅓ cup granular Swerve Sweetener
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs
- ¼ cup butter melted
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Overnight French Toast Bake:
- ½ cup cup butter melted
- 1 cup granular Swerve Sweetener
- 2 tablespoons molasses
- 1 cup chopped pecans optional
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 recipe Almond Flour Pan Bread cut into 1-inch cubes and dried in the oven at 200°F for 2 to 3 hours
Instructions
Pan Bread:
- Preheat oven to 350°F and spray a 9x9-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper and spray parchment as well.
- In a large bowl, mix together almond flour, flax seed meal, sweetener, baking powder, and salt. Stir in eggs, melted butter, almond milk and vanilla extract until well combined.
- Spread batter in prepared pan and bake 25 minutes, or until top is lightly browned and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 15 minutes, then run a sharp knife around the edges and invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Overnight French Toast:
- Spray an 11x7 glass baking dish with cooking spray. In a small bowl, mix butter, molasses and erythritol sweetener together and spread evenly over the bottom of prepared pan. Sprinkle with chopped pecans, if using.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, cinnamon and ginger. Stir in bread, toss to coat and allow to soak in egg mixture for 15 minutes.
- Spoon into baking dish over molasses mixture and press down lightly to compact together. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate at least one hour and no more than 12 hours.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake 20 minutes covered, then remove foil and continue to bake another 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown on top.
- Remove from oven and run a sharp knife around the edges of the French toast. Place a large, heatproof serving plate or tray upside down on baking dish; carefully turn plate and baking dish over. Leave baking dish over French toast 1 minute; remove baking dish. Use rubber spatula to remove any caramel sauce from bottom of baking dish and spread over top of French toast bake. Serve immediately.
Jo Ann says
Your recipe states 2 Tbsp. molasses, but in the comments way below, you stated the recipe only uses 2 tsp. I read all the comments, and I only found that one ingredient questionable. Is it 2 tablespoons or 2 teaspoons? I would love to try this recipe. Thank you.
Carolyn says
It’s supposed to be teaspoons. Ack, let me check on that and update it.
Hannah says
It still says 2TBLS. Which I just mixed up. I hope it turns out…it’s very strong with molasses but I hate to throw out that much Swerve.
Peggy says
Carolyn- Do you have any recipe books for sale, and could I order them?
I love your stuff.
Carolyn says
Hang tight, working on it!
Cici says
Do you put the cooked bread in the pan whole?
Carolyn says
I am not quite sure what you’re asking. It’s whole when you bake the pan bread on its own but then you cut it into cubes and dry it out in the oven, as it states in the ingredient list.
Vivian says
Looks delicious! Great that it can be made ahead!
Lauren says
Yep, looks like the Live Better America site has been taken down. Carolyn, anyway you still have a copy and can send it or archive it here again?
Carolyn says
It’s on my site now.
Lauren says
Thanks!!
Katie says
Hi Carolyn! I really want to try this recipe out! I’ve tried your cheesy skillet bread and cannot wait to make it into a sweet version.
I can’t seem to get either link for your Almond Flour Pan Bread or the link for Live Better America to work, though. I’m not sure if it’s just me or the links, but I’ve tried opening on a couple of devices with no luck. Please help!
Thanks,
Katie
Kaylen says
This recipe looks wonderful, but unfortunately the Live Better America web site is down – I’m not sure whether permanently or temporarily. If it’s permanently, can you post the recipe here?
Carolyn says
I am working on it. It’s on my old computer which is having…issues, shall we say?
Jenny D. says
Hi Carolyn,
Are these the 2 recipes described above? Just found this on Google:
http://www.hilltoppasturesfamilyfarm.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/frenchtoast.pdf
Carolyn says
Whoa, yes they are! I don’t know what that site is though…
Jenny D. says
Wowsa, Carolyn! You outdid yourself with this recipe!
I made this recently for a Bible study my husband & I attend weekly. We’re in our early 30s, but the avg age of everyone else in the study is 65+ (so, lots of type II diabetes). I loved it, but wasn’t sure if their standard-American-diet palettes would agree. They went bananas for it! 4 women asked for the recipe at the end of class, so I introduced them to your site. Hopefully, they try some of your other awesome concoctions.
Question: is there any way to adjust the recipe so the flavor is more like a bread pudding? If so, I’d love to make it for my mom for her birthday. Thanks!
ann says
Bummer. The link for the Overnight French Toast Bake doesn’t work. Can I pull it up elsewhere?
Carolyn says
I just posted it to my site!
Cassandra says
Hello, this looks amazing. When I clicked on the link it said this site is no longer available. I would love to have this recipe.
Carolyn says
I just posted it to my site now!
Annie says
I am glad you are working on it. I was going to make this for a brunch tomorrow… but now I will have to find some other goodie on your site to take.
wheresmytower says
I would love to dry this, but no matter what I do, the links up there (and a lot of typing in Live Better America, etc.) only take me to http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes. Surely the recipe can be reposted if it’s impossible to even get to the other person’s website? I would really like to see this!
Carolyn says
I am working on it! They removed the whole webpage recently and I am working on getting all the recipes up on my own site instead.
lmbaer says
Still hoping you can get this posted on your site!
Carolyn says
I have a couple questions about the almond flour pan bread. The carb count from MasterCook says it’s 8g carbs and 1 g fiber. Is that right? 7g net carbs seems high. Also, the recipe says to put in in a 9×9 pan, but the picture looks like a loaf pan. I’d like to bake it in a loaf pan. A 9×5 would be too small I guess. Did you use a longer pan, or mini pans? I assume changing the pan would change the cooking time, too. Do you mind letting me know what you’ve tried? Thanks in advance! I know you’re gracious with questions.
Carolyn says
BTW, I made the bread as Cheesy Skillet Bread for Spicy Sausage Stuffing at Christmas. It was so good I had to stop myself from eating it so I’d have enough for the stuffing! Some of my non-low-carb family members liked it better than the regular stuffing. 🙂
Carolyn says
The photo is from an older post. Live better America decided in the end to post them separately and I didn’t have a photo of the bread on its own. I am not sure if it would bake well in a loaf pan because I haven’t tried. I use Mastercook too and I know that the carbs were not that high! Did you manually enter some of the ingredients into MC? Because when I first started doing that, I had some of the way off due to how you have to enter both the weight and volume measurements and it threw my carb counts off. So let me check on my end. I think I still have the pan bread on its own…
Carolyn says
Actually…I just checked the pan bread in my MC and it is right! So yes…8 g of carbs and 1 g of fiber. I think it’s because I usually say 16 servings per a recipe like that, but for LBA, they wanted it to match the recipe I was trying to “makeover” so we called it 12 servings.
Sara says
Very strange! No matter how I calculate the bread (even with the only substitution being egg whites & liquid stevia), I still seem to be getting around 4 net carbs for 12 servings…7g total carbs and 3g fiber – which I expected, since almond flour and flax are so high in fiber. And this is including baking powder’s carbs, too! Can I ask how you’re getting only 1g per serving? I definitely don’t want to be underestimating my carb count.
Carolyn says
I am not sure where you are seeing 1 g net carbs per serving. I never stated that. In fact, right at the end of the post, I say:
Please note that Live Better America’s nutritional counts do not calculate net carbs. Factoring out the carbs from Swerve and fiber, the NET CARBS are 4 g per serving.
Carolyn says
Wait, you’re talking about just the bread, right? So what are you talking about when you say “only 1 g per serving”? The fiber? That’s what Mastercook gave me. What software are you using?
Sara says
Yes, sorry – I tried replying to a previous comment thread about just the bread but didn’t make myself clear! I know this is an old post. I was referring to fiber with the 1g. I got about 3g of fiber for 12 servings…7g total carbs, for a net of 4 (the bread only).
I use myfitnesspal, which calculates according to the brands of products, so I understand there’s going to be some variance, but it just seemed strange to me how different our results were! I guess there’s not much to be said for why it’s different. I’m sure Mastercook is reliable. I wonder if substituting egg whites like I did makes that much of a change?
Carolyn says
I don’t think the subs would change the fiber count. Probably just something with Mastercook, I am not sure. I’d rely on your counts for the time being.
Ami says
Hello Carolyn:
is there any way to substitute the molases?, i can’t wait to try this!. Thanks!
Carolyn says
What would you like to substitute it with? It’s only 2 teaspoons so it adds a total of 10 carbs for the entire recipes and gives the brown sugar taste and appearance.
jo says
wow!
Heidi says
I wish when you did recipes for other sites you are able to use the ziplist feature for your recipes. It is so much easier to save the recipes you want to try with that app. Is that possible or are you able to repost the recipe on your website with zip list? Thank You!
Carolyn says
I understand but if it’s on someone else’s site, there’s not much I can do. I can’t repost it on my site, it wouldn’t be fair.
Karen says
Heidi, You can put the ZipList Recipe Clipper button on your bookmarks favorites menu (I have a Mac, so not sure what it would be called on another PC) and whenever you see a recipe on any site you just click that button and it will be saved to your recipe box. Very easy!
Carolyn says
Oh my gosh, what a great tip!!!
Susan says
This is giving me an idea of how I might adapt an overnight blueberry French toast recipe I have from pre-low carb. It has chunks of cream cheese and fresh blueberries throughout and a quick fresh blueberry sauce for serving. Maybe I’ll make both! Thanks again!
Pam says
I was thinking the same thing about an overnight strawberry and cream cheese one!
Shannon says
I realize it’s been a very long time since you posted this comment, but did you ever make the blueberry cream cheese version? I’m in search of a keto version of that, which led me here. 🙂
Isis says
It seems that some people like their French toast a little more “wet,” while others prefer the finished product to be more “dry.” Can you tell me where this recipe falls on that scale? Thanks!
Carolyn says
More dry, I suppose.
Sarah G says
I love the step by step pictures and that it feeds 12. In my house I’d still need to double it but I can do that!
Don’t worry, Carolyn, I have faith that you can eventually come up with a yeast-type bread! You are good at defying the odds in the “low carb, gluten free baking” world. 🙂
Lisa says
You’ve done it again! Can’t wait to cook this one.
Chris says
Yum.