Fancy French Toast

Strawberry cream cheese stuffed french toast.

French toast is one of those fancy-named items that are really a cinch to prepare and quite the crowd pleaser.  Bad French toast is nothing more than stale grocery store bread enrobbed in scrambled eggs.  It’s simple to do it right.  Just make sure you have a generous amount of dairy (I prefer half and half) as part of the egg mixture, a scant bit of sugar, cinnamon, and maybe some vanilla extract for those wild days.  I never measure, but my guess is that my concoction would be something close to this: 3 eggs, 1/3 cup of half and half, 2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp vanilla.  Something like that.  

Don't pulverize the cereal to smitherines. Leaving some variety in the crumb sizes will add to the texture and crunch.

Today, The Fun Wife attended a Ladies’ Conference in San Diego, thus leaving The Fun Foodie with “Mr. Mom” duties.  First order of business: BREAKFAST.  I beheld the day old (okay, a couple days old) whole loaves of Panera bread on the counter and immediately began my battle plan for some fancy French toast.  I scoured  the pantry for more ammo and found the broken, crumbly remnants of the last of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  Waste not, want not!  I combined them with some Cheerios and crushed them even more to create the pièce de résistance of French toast:  Cheerio and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Enrusted French Toast!

If you want to be a true hero to your kids and try this out, be careful to maintain a medium low flame under your well buttered griddle and keep a close eye on your toast.  The cereal has a tendency to burn pretty quick and in no time it’ll be … toast.  Don’t be afraid of a nice deep brown caramelization, though.  That color is just bringing more flavor to the party!  Speaking of party, our French toast madness also included stuffing a couple super-sized slices of afore-mentioned Panera bread with cream cheese goodness (pictured above).  I jazzed up some cream cheese with strawberry jam and a bit of sugar and cut a pocket into the bread.  I used the standard egg batter and it brought raves from my budding food critics.  One problem, though.  I may have raised the bar too high with this morning’s effort.

They might not ever be satisfied with regular French toast again.