Pinteresting Summer

Challenge 3- At Home French Toast Sticks

I pinned this recipe a few months ago think it was a brilliant idea for a quick and healthy snack/breakfast for those "Mommy, I'm hungry" moments. I love french toast but regular french toast sticks are super unhealthy (check the box for all of the ingredients) so these seemed like a great idea. My mother-in-law was in town and a loaf of white bread (which is almost never in our house) was left over so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use the bread and have a easy freezer snack.

The recipe is as follows:

Author/Source:

Tricia Callahan @ Onceamonthmom.com      

Ingredients:

• 30 slices whole wheat bread
• .25 cups butter, melted
• 8 eggs
• .33 cups sugar
• 1.33 cups milk (I used whole)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• .5 cups butternut squash puree (could also use sweet potato, pumpkin or acorn squash)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice bread slices into thirds. In a large bowl mix all ingredients except sliced bread. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Dip bread pieces, one by one, in the batter until coated and then place on the cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes turning over half-way through to ensure even cooking on both sides. When done, remove to cooling rack. Serve or freeze.

Freezing Directions:

Allow to cool on cooling rack completely or place on a cool cookie sheet and place in freezer for 10-15 minutes or until partially frozen (flash freezing). Place in Ziploc freezer bag and place in freezer until ready to use. To serve: microwave 30-45 seconds.

Servings:

90 sticks ~30 “toddler” servings

Now I realize that not 3 days ago I was preaching the laws according to Paula Deen about sticking to a recipe the first time you make it. However, I figured the changes I was making was to quantity of the ingredients not the ingredients themselves I would probably be OK. I only used 20 slices of bread (because that's all I had) 6 eggs (since I was going to be dipping less bread) 1 cup of milk (still whole) and I used a sweet potato and apple puree I had (shh don't tell Kathryn). Bread was sliced, dipped, and put on cooking sprayed and *foiled cookie sheets (the foil will come into play shortly), and oven ready.

I put them in the oven at 350 degrees and set the timer for 15 minutes. When the timer went off I grabbed them out and assumed I would easily flip them over and put them in the oven for a second 15 minutes (You know what happens when you ASS U ME don't you?) Even though the were on foil (no not the good Reynolds kind) and I sprayed the foil with Pam they still stuck. It took a lot more effort to flip them and they were not nearly as pretty as I would have hoped. However once I got them flipped and back in the oven I at least hoped they would taste as good as they smelled (my kitchen smelled like a mix between pancakes and cinnamon buns).

After about 10 minutes I checked them and the seemed to be done. This was the final product:

They weren't exactly pretty but taste wise the were on par with regular french toast. The sweet potato and apple flavor wasn't at all pervasive so the toddler was none the wiser. With a little syrup they were gobbled up as a late morning snack (someone was up at 6:30 this morning demanding cereal). They are currently cooling and I will put them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the freezer in just a bit. Next time I will just spray down the cookie sheets super good (like the recipe says) and see if that helps with the sticking problem. All in all a good recipe and at least I didn't have to sit in front of a hot skillet all morning flipping 60 french toast sticks.