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Crunchy French Toast

Crunchy French Toast

On a recent visit with my goddaughter Piper and her sisters Alden and Reilly, the girls surprised me one morning by making me their favorite version of French toast for breakfast - a "crunchy" French toast coated with corn flakes (actually a Corn flakes like cereal with dried blueberries in it) and baked in the oven. The three sisters, ages 4, 7, and 9, did everything to prepare this meal, while I sat astounded, watching them, lifting not a finger to help. These little French toast squares were actually quite good, especially with butter and real maple syrup. The recipe comes from a book they received for Christmas - Kitchen for Kids. Thank you girls! (More photos)

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Crunchy French Toast Recipe

Ingredients

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2 or 3 slices of bread, cut into quarters
1 cup cornflake cereal
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour
2 drops of vanilla
Butter and pancake syrup

Method

1 Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.

2 Put the bread pieces on a lined baking sheet into the warming oven (it does not need to be at full temperature) to toast lightly for 5 minutes. Cool the bread completely.

3 Seal the cornflakes in a heavy plastic bag. Crush them with a rolling pin to the size of rolled oats. Pour into a pie pan or a shallow dish. Set aside.

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4 In a large bowl, whisk to mix the eggs, milk, flour and vanilla until blended. Be sure there are no lumps of unmixed flour. Pour into a pie pan or shallow dish. In batches, lay the bread pieces in the egg mix. Soak about 1 minute on each side in the egg mixture. Be careful not to rip the bread.

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5 Place the bread pieces in the cornflake crumbs. Coat both sides with the crumbs. Place on the lined baking sheet.

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6 Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes on one side. Then flip over with tongs or a spatula and bake another 5 to 10 minutes, until the crumbs begin to turn brown. Eat warm with butter and pancake syrup.

Makes 2 or 3 servings.

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28 Comments

What wonderful photos of the children, if only I had little ones to fix breakfast for me!

Posted by: Mercedes on April 20, 2007 8:12 AM

I love the little chef's hat!! Adorable! And this actually looks like something I would make! (we are big french toast eaters)

Posted by: Deborah on April 20, 2007 8:27 AM

Adorable photos and the recipe looks like a good one. Yum!

Posted by: Mary on April 20, 2007 9:33 AM

Amazing!! And I just happen to have corn flakes. Tell the kids that a "Special K" approves!!

Posted by: Alanna on April 20, 2007 9:49 AM

Thanks for this, Elise! My kids (probably all kids, actually) love French toast and I know they will get a kick out of the crunchy aspect of this recipe! If I feel strong enough I may actually let them help. Kids in the kitchen is always a test of my patience ... I love my kids and I love cooking but it is hard for me to mix the two! I let my 7 year old flip a pancake this morning and it landed on the floor!

Posted by: Ana on April 20, 2007 10:45 AM

I'm not sure how I feel about the cornflakes, but I guess I'm going to find out. Instead of maple syrup though, it will be cinnamon and sugar for me!

Posted by: Jake on April 20, 2007 10:55 AM

Could those kids be any cuter? No. I love your recipes, and the photography really adds another layer of understanding (and cuteness) to the presentation. Thank you!

Posted by: trevor on April 20, 2007 11:12 AM

Absolutely adorable! They can come and cook at my house any time!

Posted by: lydia on April 20, 2007 1:12 PM

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
dude! THIS is whats for DINNER!
thx! :)

Posted by: merd on April 20, 2007 7:14 PM

What delightful and thoughtful young ladies! Looks like Godmomma has had a profound influence on them! Have had this delicious crunchy french toast and it is wonderful! Say, I have a couple of grandsons who love to cook also ... about the same ages! Thanks for your wonderful recipes & commentary! Keep them coming! :)

Posted by: Cherie on April 20, 2007 7:15 PM

The idea of little girls doing there bit cooking is lovely. It's nice to see them all join in & do something nice together, it's just a pitty that there're not a lot of children do things like this anymore; it's more exciting than fighting or squabling,----it's fun.

Posted by: ann. on April 20, 2007 10:02 PM

We woke up to an urge of eating french toasts.
Then I happened to read this before we made any, and we got ideas to spice up our normal bread-in-egg types. Hehe! Thank you!

Posted by: Nirah on April 20, 2007 10:03 PM

Hi Elise,

Looks like you have 3 smart girls to take over for you when you are ready to retired from Simple Recipes? Great recipe!

Linda
in WA

Posted by: Linda on April 21, 2007 7:05 PM

I'm finally catching up on reading blogs. What great pictures of these adorable girls. Love the chef's hat!

Posted by: Kalyn on April 21, 2007 8:36 PM

*Somebody* got the royal treatment!

Great pictures. Those kids are pretty adorable.

Posted by: Andrea on April 21, 2007 9:25 PM

I made this for breakfast today for the first time and my boyfriend and I were not disapointed!

Posted by: audrey on April 22, 2007 11:46 AM

Yum! I made these this morning and they were fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

Posted by: Katie B. on April 22, 2007 9:16 PM

Ahhh... this type of French toast is the best thing on Earth...

If you live in/near the Twin Cities, there's is a little place near Uptown Minneapolis (on Lyndale Ave.) called Sunny Side Up: they make 'crunchy' French Toast.... and it's DA BEST!

To be fair, since I haven't tried Elise's recipe: They make the Best Crunchy French Toast I've ever had.

Now, I can save some moolah, and make them at home! YAY!

Posted by: Mau on April 23, 2007 7:49 AM

What a killer recipe! Just one question... what kind of bread did you use? It looks like wheat bread in the great photos, how did it taste compaired to its white counterpart?

Posted by: Noel on April 23, 2007 1:50 PM

I love Sunny Side Up in uptown... but Elise's recipe is just as good if not better, and I don't have to drive 20 minutes to get there from Burnsville!

Posted by: Mary on April 23, 2007 1:53 PM

There is a restaurant near me that does this with Captian Crunch. Very yummy.

Posted by: Amy on April 23, 2007 3:01 PM

Half a teaspoon??
Isn´t that a tad too little flour? Other than that, the recipe sounds and looks wonderful...

Posted by: Rob Thomas on April 25, 2007 8:05 AM

Adorable!!! The photos are fabulous, and completely inspiring!!

Posted by: Emily on April 25, 2007 2:29 PM

What a great idea! My kids are always asking me to cook with them and now I can finally find some recipes they can do. Now if I can only teach them how to clean up after themselves.

Posted by: Nancy on April 26, 2007 3:40 PM

Oh gosh they look like characters from an Enid Blyton book come to life. Absolutley adorable.

Posted by: Clarene on April 29, 2007 6:40 PM

Un bonjour de France à Elise et ses amis!
Sympa et original la recette.
Moi, j'utilise de la brioche pour faire le pain de mie
Bonne continuation...

Posted by: Cupi on April 9, 2008 6:57 AM

So, so good. Thank you for this unique and delicious recipe! I plan to make it for overnight guests this weekend.

I put butter on top of the toasts, and then put back in the oven for a minute to melt. I thought it would be a little hard to spread butter on the crunchy top.

Posted by: Allison on January 28, 2009 6:10 AM

I just wanna say that I have tried several recipes off this site and ALL of them are outstanding. Great job, Elise, thank you for all the fantastic recipes.

I first had crunchy French toast at a restaurant in Seattle. Instead of corn flakes, though, they used Panko bread crumbs (you probably know of it, a very thick heavy Japanese bread crumb). I tried that myself and it worked well. I'll have to try this recipe sometime and see how it works!

Posted by: Scott on April 2, 2009 6:05 PM

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