mixed berry baked french toast

Jetlag is good for some things.

It's good for inappropriately long naps at weird times.

It's a good excuse for being useless at work.

It's good for eating 6 meals in a day because your flight started at 11am in Paris and you got fed meals on the flight but then you arrived in Chicago at 1pm and you still had to eat lunch again and dinner too.

It's good for making someone who normally cringes at the thought of any hour before 9am into a perky morning person who gets up and takes long walks and plants flowers and makes beautiful breakfasts...all before 9am.

I don't really ever make breakfast except for on weekends and holidays. I always vow to be cute and wifely and get up early enough to prepare an enticing breakfast for my husband before he goes to work. Then I sleep instead.

But this is the second weekday in a row of inspired early morning breakfast-making. And this particular one turned out decadently delicious.

So in other words, jetlag is good for my husband.

We'll see how long this lasts.

Baked Berry French Toast

Serves 3-4

1/2 loaf of day-old french bread/baguette, sliced into 1-inch slices (I used 8 slices)

Berry mixture

1 cup mixed berries (I used fresh strawberries, blueberries and raspberries)

zest from one lemon

1/2 T. sugar

1 T. A/P flour

Egg mixture

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. almond extract

2 T. sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Streusel mixture

4 T. butter

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Toppings

Additional fresh berries

Homemade whipping cream, if desired (I whipped about 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream with about a tablespoon of confectioner's sugar and 1/2 tsp of vanilla. Delish.)

Maple syrup

Butter an 8x8-inch glass pan. Place bread slices in two rows in the pan, slightly overlapping each slice. (This makes the part of the bread that is sticking up get caramel-y and crusty so all your bread isn't soggy.)

Combine the ingredients for the berry mixture in a bowl. Spoon this over the bread in the pan.

Combine the egg mixture ingredients in a medium bowl. Pour this evenly over the bread and berries, covering all the bread as much as possible.

Cover with foil and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour (depending on how much time you have/your hunger level).

Preheat oven to 350. Combine streusel ingredients in a small bowl. Remove the bread from the fridge and spoon the streusel over the bread/berries, making it as evenly distributed as possible. You may try to spread it a bit if you like.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes, until the mixture on the bottom is good and bubbly. I removed the foil for the last 10-15 minutes of baking to try to get a nice crustiness on top.

Top with desired toppings.

Die and go to heaven.