As I have mentioned before, I love brunch. And while I have a stable of tried and true recipes, I typically like to try something new when we are having people over. Occasionally this leads to a scrapped dish and a quick run to the bagel shop, but most of the time, it works out well.

We had some friends over on Sunday, and I decided to try Sarah Copeland's Overnight Egg & Cheese Strata which I found on Epicurious. Not only was it light, airy and decadent, but I assembled the entire thing the night before and simply popped it into the oven for an hour before my guests arrived. Sadly, we devoured it before I could snap a photo of the fluffy, cheesy deliciousness. I will definitely make this again.

INGREDIENTS

Butter, for greasing the baking dish
4 thick slices hearty whole-wheat/wholemeal or multigrain artisan bread {about 4 1/2 oz/130 g}
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup/240 ml whole milk
8 oz/225 g grated Fontina cheese {about 1 cup}
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
6 to 8 asparagus stalks
4 thin slices mortadella or prosciutto {optional}
1 tbsp finely snipped chives

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/gas 4. Butter a small 4-cup/960-ml ovenproof baking dish.
Remove the crusts from the bread and cut into slices; you should have about 3 cups. Lay the slices across the baking dish, slightly overlapping and allowing some edges to hang over the sides.
Whisk together the eggs and milk in a large bowl. Stir in half of the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Pour three-fourths of the egg mixture over the bread cubes.
Peel the bottom half of the asparagus and break off the stem ends where it snaps naturally. Discard any woody stems.
Layer the mortadella over the bread and top with asparagus spears. Pour the remaining egg mixture over the top and finish with the remaining cheese. At this point, you can bake the strata immediately, or cover with plastic wrap/cling film and refrigerate overnight for a surprise breakfast in bed.
Bake the strata until just set, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool slightly, sprinkle the top with chopped chives, and serve in the baking dish.

Chefs note: P.S. Double this recipe easily for a large crowd, and watch it disappear at every New Year's Brunch o r potluck. Bake for 1 hour in a 9-by-13-in/23-by-33 cm pan.

Notes:

I did not go with multi-grain here. I used a day-old round Italian loaf cut in cubes and it was perfect. It was dense enough to really soak up the egg and milk mixture, and was perfectly light and fluffy once cooked.
I doubled this recipe and baked it in a pretty casserole dish so that I could serve it at the table if I wanted to.
While the recipe called for fontina, I used a mixture of fontina, which I grated by hand, and a few cups of a pre-shredded Italian cheese mix, which included more fontina as well as provolone and mozzarella.
I skipped the mortadella here in favor of serving a pile of oven-crisp bacon on the side instead.
In addition to the bacon, I served oven-roasted fingerling potatoes and a bib-lettuce salad with champagne vinaigrette. I pre-cooked the bacon and potatoes earlier in the morning and just quickly reheated them in the oven while the strata finished cooking.