Spray a 13 x 9 glass baking dish with cooking spray. First, cut your french fread in half and cube. Place first half on bottom. Layer with cream cheese. Take the other half of french bread, cube it and place on top of cream cheese and first layer.
Whisk all remaining ingredients in bowl. Play around with the sugar. We like ours a little sweeter. If you use 3/4 cup, it isn't quite as sweet so I use between 3/4 and 1 cup of sugar, but remember you will also be adding syrup at the end. After you have mixed together all ingredients, pour over the bread, making sure that you have covered every piece, pushing it down with spoon and if needed go to bottom and getting excess and bringing it back up to soak bread again. Then, it must go into fridge overnight. I make this before bed so it will be ready in a.m.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until lightly browned. Sometimes mine has to go to more like an hour and I even have a convection oven so you just have to watch it. It also depends on how brown you like it. It is a really large casserole.
Serve with real maple syrup and it's simply delicious or serve with other syrup. I think it would also be delicious to throw in a few blueberries although I've never tried it. I may try that next time in the Spring and use blueberry syrup for a change.