Ina Garten-Inspired Overnight Breakfast Casserole

Compiled by Igor Kukolj, Editor. Nobody here has cooked this — how these are made.

The whole appeal of this dish is that it goes into the oven while you are still finding your slippers. That is also how it goes wrong.

A dish this deep, taken straight from the fridge, cooks from the outside at a rate the centre cannot keep up with. By the time the middle of a fridge-cold casserole reaches a set custard, the outer two inches have gone rubbery and are weeping. An hour on the counter before it goes in evens the starting temperature out, and the whole thing sets together.

Take it out when you put the coffee on. That is the recipe step nobody writes down.

The custard ratio is the recipe

One egg to 100 ml of dairy sets into a tender custard. Everything else here — which bread, which cheese, sausage or mushrooms — is negotiable. Get the ratio wrong and no amount of good sausage rescues it: too many eggs and it bakes into a savoury sponge, too few and it never sets.

Dry the bread, or it turns to porridge

Fresh bread collapses under nine hours of custard. Cut it into cubes and leave them out overnight, or dry them for ten minutes at 150°C. Dried cubes absorb the custard and hold their shape, which is what gives you distinct layers rather than a uniform pudding.

Test it in the middle

Push a knife into the centre and hold it there for five seconds. If it comes out hot and clean, it is done; warm and wet means the middle is still custard. The edges tell you nothing — they set half an hour earlier.

Storing

Four days baked, in the fridge. Individual portions reheat well, covered, at 170°C for 15 minutes. The assembled unbaked dish should not sit longer than 24 hours or the bread breaks down completely.