Baked Apple French Toast with Caramel Sauce

1 loaf French bread, sliced in 1 1/2 inch slices
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
6 medium apples, peeled and sliced (Fuji, Jonathan, or Granny Smith)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 recipe caramel sauce (see below)

The night before serving, coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Layer bread slices on the bottom of the pan. Combine milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl; beat well and pour over bread slices. Place apple slices on top of bread. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake covered about 50 minutes; remove foil and bake 10 minutes more. Serve toast hot, topped with caramel sauce. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Caramel Sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly.

NOTE: I am made this for breakfast for B on her birthday. It was yummy! We used the thinner sliced bread that we already had instead of French bread, and halved all the ingredients. We also only used 2 Granny Smith apples. I didn't notice the instruction to peel the apples, and I didn't know that's what you normally do when baking apples, so I left the peels on. I liked it that way, though. We had some leftover caramel sauce that B had made with a different recipe, so we used that instead. Recipe from the Lion House Christmas cookbook.

Variation: Replace the apples with peaches and top with syrup and powdered sugar after serving instead of caramel sauce.