RECIPE

French toast bites are the simplest way to bring everyone to the breakfast table

My inner kid loves these easy-to-make bites as much as my actual kid

By D. Watkins

Editor at Large

Published October 2, 2023 8:40AM (EDT)

Easter Torrijas, Spanish Style French Toast (Getty Images/Cris Cantón)
Easter Torrijas, Spanish Style French Toast (Getty Images/Cris Cantón)

My daughter likes dress shoes and I prefer Nike. She loves regular Cheerios and I am a Honey Nut guy. She loves for the windows to be rolled down, and I like them up. We are almost opposites — until we get into French Toast Bites.

We both love our French toast quick, crunchy and handheld, so I figured it out and it's good. So good, in fact, that you can serve it with syrup or not. 

My dad didn't work hard at making me fall in love with the dish. While I loved so many of his creations, I must be honest when I say that breakfast was a ship he could not dock. For starters, he'd crack a few eggs in a big glass bowl, add a ridiculous amount of cinnamon, soak the regular white Wonder Bread in that cinnamon-eggy mix, and quickly fry them into pieces of what he called French Toast. To make matters worse, he then scrambled any remaining cinnamon egg mix and slapped it on the side of the plate. On these mornings, I would gladly choose a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. 

I rejected the dish for years because the soggy, burnt image of what my dad used to dole out was always stuck in my head. It was when I ordered Banana French toast from a gourmet restaurant that I realized the Watkins household needed to do it better. Other families and restaurants had served French toast with fresh fruit like strawberries and blueberries, or whipped cream (which I wasn't really into) and prepared it using Texas toast, which was incredibly delicious when prepared right. 

I grew to appreciate French toast and gladly experimented with many different recipes when I got older.

 My favorite French toast — the version my child loves — is tiny, just like her, and so easy to make. The beauty of this recipe is that you can serve these hot or cool as a part of your breakfast or as a snack. My daughter has eaten them every which way. It's also so easy to make, that you can enlist your toddler to help.

French Toast Bites 
Yields
36 French toast "bites"
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes

Ingredients

A pack of Martin's potato rolls (12 rolls)

1/2 cup of nondairy coffee Creamer

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 Tablespoon cinnamon, divided

1 Tablespoon sugar

Unsalted butter 

Maple syrup

 

Directions

  1. Mix the eggs, vanilla extract, creamer and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon into a bowl.

  2. Mix the remaining cinnamon and all of the sugar into a small bowl or on to a plate

  3. Slice the potato rolls into thirds and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes.

  4. Grease your pan with butter until you hear a light sizzle. 

  5. Dip your rolls into the egg solution and then quick fry them in the pan. Once they brown to your liking, drizzle them with the cinnamon and sugar and serve with or without the maple syrup. 

 


By D. Watkins

D. Watkins is an Editor at Large for Salon. He is also a writer on the HBO limited series "We Own This City" and a professor at the University of Baltimore. Watkins is the author of the award-winning, New York Times best-selling memoirs “The Beast Side: Living  (and Dying) While Black in America”, "The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir," "Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised: A Memoir of Survival and Hope" as well as "We Speak For Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress." His new books, "Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments," and "The Wire: A Complete Visual History" are out now.

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