Blueberry Breakfast Bake

One of my friends commented on the Christmas post asking about our traditional Christmas morning breakfast, so I'm going to post it here for them (and anyone else who'd like to try it). This tradition comes from Ryan's family, who got the recipe from somewhere, but I don't know where, so I can't credit it.

Blueberry Breakfast Bake

8-10 slices white bread, cut into 1" pieces

8 oz. cream cheese, cut into .5" pieces

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

8 eggs

1.5 cups milk

blueberry syrup

Grease a 9x13 baking dish. Spread half of bread in the dish. Top with cream cheese. Sprinkle with blueberries. Spread remaining bread over blueberries. Beat eggs and milk until blended; pour over bread. Cover with foil and refrigerate 8-24 hours. About 1 1/4 hours before serving, heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake, covered, 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 25-30 minutes more or until top is puffed and center is set. Serve with blueberry syrup.

The original recipe just calls for 8 slices of bread, but I think it also uses a slightly smaller dish, so I usually use as much as is needed to cover my 9x13 dish, which I believe is 9 or 10 slices. I think I probably use more than one cup of blueberries as well. Also, you can buy "blueberry syrup" that is essentially blueberry-flavored corn syrup. If that grosses you out, simply pour some of your leftover frozen blueberries in a small saucepan with a small amount of butter and your preferred salt and, if desired, a tiny bit of sugar, and cook until it's warm/juices are flowing. This year we threw in some raspberries as well. Much tastier than the corn syrup.

We don't usually have much leftover of this, but our experience has taught us that it tastes much better fresh from the oven and doesn't re-heat particularly well. I find the leftovers edible, but not nearly as delicious, while Ryan doesn't even consider the leftovers edible.