Today’s recipe came from the internet on the yellowblissroad.com website. It was a recipe I had stashed in my breakfast recipes to make a folder. I was thumbing through that folder when I found it and figured it would be a good one to try out on my Sunday School classmates. It was my turn to provide a snack for our class.

 

Ham and Cheese Croissant Breakfast Casserole

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INGREDIENTS:

— 3 large croissants or 6 small, torn into 1 inch pieces

— 1 cup diced, cooked ham

— 1 ¼ cups shredded cheddar cheese

— 5 eggs

— 1 cup milk

— 2 tablespoons honey

— 1 tablespoon ground mustard

— ½ teaspoon salt

— ½ teaspoon pepper

— ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg, if desired

DIRECTIONS:

1. Spray a 8 or 9 inch square baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Arrange half of the croissant pieces in the baking dish. Sprinkle with half of the ham and cheese. Repeat with remaining croissant pieces and ham and cheese.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, honey, mustard, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

4. Pour egg mixture over ingredients in baking dish, pressing croissant pieces into egg mixture to moisten completely. Cover tightly with foil; refrigerate at least 8 hours but no longer than 24 hours.

5. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Bake casserole covered 35 minutes. Uncover; bake 25 to 30 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

 

I wasn’t expecting our usual large crowd in class, so this dish seemed the perfect size. On Saturday I headed to the grocery and picked up everything I wanted for the coming week. While in the bakery section of the store I debated on purchasing regular size croissants or the small ones. I ended up buying the small ones only because there would be two left over and I could eat them. I like croissants, and if I’d had the time, I would have tried making them myself.

That evening I began putting this dish together. Instead of spraying my 8×8 dish I greased it with Crisco. After reading the ingredients listed on the cooking spray a few weeks ago, I’m not sure I’ll ever use it again. As I tore three croissants into little pieces, I placed them in the dish. I’d cooked a small ham a few weeks ago and ended up freezing a few slices because we got a little tired of eating it after a couple of days. So, after thawing it I chopped it up and sprinkled it over the croissant pieces, then I just sprinkled half of the cheese on top, then repeated all those steps.

I mixed the eggs, milk, honey, ground mustard, salt, pepper, and nutmeg together. I wasn’t sure how the nutmeg would go with this dish, but since it called for it, I didn’t leave it out. After mixing thoroughly, I poured it over the croissant mixture. I covered it tightly with foil and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

When morning came, I removed the dish from the refrigerator and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Now the recipe didn’t say do that but several others I have tell you to do that so the dish will warm up just a bit and not be refrigerator cold when it goes into the oven. I’m guessing that it cuts down on the baking time. I turned the oven on to preheat and got busy getting ready for church. When the oven was preheated, and I was dressed I put the dish in the oven and set the timer for 35 minutes. When time was up, I removed the foil. The dish looked like it was coming along just fine and I reset the timer for 25 minutes. When the timer sounded for the second time I peeked into the oven, and to my surprise, the dish looked done; I didn’t even bother testing it with a knife inserted into the center.

I put the casserole in a towel-lined basket, and we were off to church.

When I got to my Sunday School room, there were a few people there, and they wasted no time diving into breakfast.

Of course, I asked them to let me know what they thought, and all I got were kind remarks; everyone liked it. There was about a spoonful leftover, and Brad had that as soon as we got home from church. He said he liked it too, but it tasted a little bit sweet. We figured it was probably the ham (I bake my hams with a bit of brown sugar glaze on them). I asked him if he could taste the nutmeg and he said not really.

So there’s another one for the cookbook because I certainly nailed this recipe.

Now I can’t just take one dish to share with my Sunday School classmates; I’ll tell you about the second dish next week.

Sarah Condley is an amateur baker and chef who is compiling a cookbook of her favorite recipes.