Cinnamon Swirl French Toast Recipe

This is one of my all time favorite breakfast recipes. It’s fast, easy, feeds a ton of people and makes amazing leftovers. I mean really, what more could you want?

I have never been a french toast fan. In fact, I can’t really remember voluntarily eating it ever until about four years ago when a friend made it while I was visiting her. Hers was pretty good, but it still had that semi-soft consistency that most french bread ends up with. The outside is crispy, but the inside is kinda smushy. Like a good french fry.

Then about three years ago, I started up on this mission to try new foods and explore my culinary horizons a bit. After all, your taste buds change every now and then, right? Since then, I’ve discovered no less than a dozen new foods each year that I absolutely adore. So…taking my mother’s advice, I try to live by the adage “try it, you might like it.”

This sent me on the hunt for a french toast recipe I might actually like. I finally stumbled across one on All Recipes that looked like it had promise. The problem kept coming back to the bread. Most people use very thick bread for their french toast. That’s fine, but see the above mentioned issue of crispy verses soft. What I wanted was a very sturdy bread.

Then one day my dad showed up with a loaf of Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Swirl bread for Thing One. (Because she loves all things Cinnamon.) While pulling out a slice to make toast, I realized this was the super dense, but flavorful bread I needed as my base. The next day, I dug out the All Recipes listing and gave it a go.

Oh sweet cinnamony goodness!

This was exactly what I was looking for!

Not only was the french toast perfectly crispy and chewy all at the same time, but it had a cinnamon punch that made it absolutely delicious. (Incidentally, I’ve also tried it with their cinnamon raisin bread and their blueberry bread and both versions are equally fabulous.) Plus, the leftovers can either be popped in the toaster to reheat, or can be enjoyed cold and chewy straight out of the fridge sans butter and syrup. Can’t find the Pepperidge Farms version? Sara Lee, Thomas’s and Cinnabon brands all have nearly identical products. If you don’t mind raisins in your french toast, you can pick up the Aldi version even cheaper. Don’t forget to watch the seasonal specials from Pepperidge Farms. At one point last year we picked up Pumpkin Spice cinnamon swirl and Apple Cobbler cinnamon swirl breads and the kids went absolutely crazy over the versions I made with those.

Want to give it a go? Here’s the recipe.

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Fluffy Cinnamon French Toast Recipe

Nothing soggy here! This french toast is sturdy and delicious!

Author: Jennifer

Cuisine: American

Recipe type: Breakfast

Serves: 8

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  20 mins

Total time:  35 mins

Ingredients

• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 3 eggs
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1-2 loaves of Pepperidge Farms Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Instructions

1. Throw everything but the bread into a bowl and whisk the heck out of it.
2. If you are cinnamon crazy like me, go ahead and add a full teaspoon.
3. Once it's mixed up, heat up your griddle and start dipping some bread. You don't want to saturate the bread till it falls apart, but you want to press down on it a bit to make sure it's doing it's spongy best to soak up that liquid.
4. Brush a little butter or a shot of cooking oil from a spray can on your skillet before putting this on to cook.
5. Grill for a few minutes each side and then into the oven to stay warm.

Notes

I can knock out a full loaf of this stuff in two rounds on my griddle and it's enough to feed my family of five with leftovers. (And don't go thinking that my kids are small...Thing Two can eat 4 or 5 of these in one sitting, which is more than I can.) If you've got older kids or guests, throw a second loaf in the mix. The recipe above will easily cover you for 1.5 loafs of the bread. Or double it and go hog wild.

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