Cinnamon Toast Crunch French Toast with Vanilla Cream Cinnamon Crunch Filling

I know I know! This is my last Cinnamon Toast Crunch posting...for now anyway :) I had to use some scraps I had leftover from the cookies and cupcakes and love making my man some breakfast in the morning. We both LOVE french toast and I haven't made it in a while, so I threw this together. I found it to be heavenly and my boyfriend seemed to enjoy it. He did say that it was more like a dessert than breakfast though. I say dessert for breakfast makes a good morning!

Cinnamon Toast Crunch French Toast with Vanilla Cream Cinnamon Crunch Filling

A heavenly breakfast for two. French Toast with a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal crust, filled with a vanilla cream that has ground up cereal in it and topped with syrup, cereal crumbs and powdered sugar.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
1-2 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 slices of bread
1 tablespoon of butter
1 cup crushed Cinnamon toast cereal
syrup
powdered sugar for dusting
Vanilla cream filling (I used the same filling that I made for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes) (recipe follows)

Directions:

Heat a nonstick skillet on medium-high heat. Whisk together eggs, desired amount of milk, vanilla and desired amount of cinnamon in a small bowl. Spread the crushed cereal on a plate. Lightly dip boh sides of a slice of bread in the egg mixture. Then dab each side of the bread on the crushed cereal (just enough to lightly coat). Drop a bit of butter in the hot pan and spread evenly to coat the pan. Toast each side of the bread until golden brown (be carefull not to burn the cereal). In between the slices of bread, spread desired amount of filling. Top the bread with a dallop of filling, crushed cereal, syrup and dust with powdered sugar.

Vanilla Cream Filling (from Baking Bites)

Ingredients: (this makes plenty, you may even want to make just half of this as I used what was left from my cupcakes)

1 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 cup milk (low fat is fine)
1/4 cup butter (or trans fat-free shortening)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 scraped vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs

Directions:

Whisk together the flour and milk and cook in a small saucepan over medium heat until thick. This will only take a few minutes. Sir continuously to prevent the mixture from clumping and do not bring all the way to a boil.

When thickened (consistency will be that of a thin pudding or custard), strain with a mesh strainer into a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool completely to room temperature.

When the milk mixture is cool, cream the butter (or shortening) and sugar together in a medium bowl until light. Add in the milk/flour mixture and the scraped vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract) and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 7 minutes, add cereal crumbs (1/2 cup) and beat until light and fluffy.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes

So it's my roomates (and best friend of 12 years) birthday monday and my boyfriend just got asked to be a manager for a week again at work...they both love Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal so I think it is time to take a stab at these cupcakes.

Ideas for these have been racing through my head for weeks! I finally decided to just make a cinnamon cupcake that I found on Annie's Eats, fill it with a vanilla cream with crushed cereal mixed in and top with a vanilla buttercream frosting that has crushed cereal mixed in as well, dusted with crushed cereal and topped with a Cinnamon Toast Crunch treat. Wow! Yes, I am aware that I sometimes take on too much!

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes

A cinnamon cupcake with crushed cereal baked in filled with vanilla cream frosting mixed with crushed cereal, topped with vanilla cream frosting, dusted with crushed cereal and topped with a cinnamon toast crunch treat.

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
½ cup skim milk
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp. sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs (for cake batter)
1-3 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (½ cup crushed (to top cupcake), 1 cup fine crumbs (for frosting and filling))
Vanilla cream frosting (recipe follows)
Cream filling (recipe follows)
Cinnamon Toast Crunch treats (recipe follows)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 12-cup cupcake pan with paper liners. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup of Cinnamon toast Crurnch crumbs. Stir milk and butter in a small saucepan over low heat just until butter melts; set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat eggs and sugar until thick enough for the batter to fall in a heavy ribbon when the beater is lifted, about 5 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Add the flour mixture; beat just until blended.
Beat in the milk-butter mixture just until blended. Stir in desired amount of cereal (about 1-2 cups) Divide batter evenly between cupcake liners. Sprinkle Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs on top of each cupcake.

Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 16-18 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch treats: (inspired by fruity pebble treats from recipezaar)

Ingredients: (make 1/4 or 1/2 batch as you wont need that much)

1.5 tablespoons margarine or butter
1/2 (10 ounce) package regular marshmallows or 4 cups mini marshmallows
3 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal

Directions:

Melt margarine in large saucepan over low heat
Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted
Remove from heat
Add Cinnamon Toast Crunch and stir until well coated.
Using buttered spatula or waxed paper, press mixture evenly into a small pan coated with cooking spray.
Allow to cool

Vanilla Cream Filling (from Baking Bites)

Ingredients:

3 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk (low fat is fine)
1/2 cup butter (or trans fat-free shortening)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 scraped vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs

Directions:

Whisk together the flour and milk and cook in a small saucepan over medium heat until thick. This will only take a few minutes. Sir continuously to prevent the mixture from clumping and do not bring all the way to a boil.

When thickened (consistency will be that of a thin pudding or custard), strain with a mesh strainer into a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool completely to room temperature.

When the milk mixture is cool, cream the butter (or shortening) and sugar together in a medium bowl until light. Add in the milk/flour mixture and the scraped vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract) and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 7 minutes, add cereal crumbs (1/2 cup) and beat until light and fluffy. Scrape into a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip, or a large ziplock bag with the corner cut off, and set aside until ready to fill your cupcakes.

Vanilla Cream Frosting: (from Martha Stewart)

Ingredients:

Makes about 4 cups
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs

Directions:

With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.

Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. Then add 1/2 cup of cereal crumbs and beat until mixed. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes

After cupcakes have cooled, fill a pastry bag with the vanilla cream icing.
To fill cupcakes, push pastry bag in the top as far as it can go without puncturing the bottom, gently squeeze while slowly pulling up until you reach the surface.

Using a piping bag with a round tip, frost each cupcake with vanilla frosting. Top the frosting with a cinnamon toast crunch treat and dust with ground up cereal

These are delicious if I do say so myself! They taste JUST like the cereal! YAY!My boyfriend actually labeled these as his favorite that I've made so far. They may be a lot of work but they are totally worth it. Also, the filling is optional...I just HAD to do it as I love leaving little surprises in my cupcakes :)

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cookies

So I have been trying to come up with a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcake recipe, and I'm still working on it. I often mess around with cookies first to get ideas on what works and doesn't so I can be better prepared for my cupcakes.

For the cookies, I origionally wanted to do a snickerdoodle cookie and instead of rolling it around in cinnamon sugar, rolling it in Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs. I felt that the cereal would be too subtle and learned my lesson that using whole cereal leads to a soggy treat. I wanted more Cinnamon Toast Crunchness so I was inspired by the s'mores cookies recipe I just posted. I messed around with that a bit and heres what I came up with...

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cookies

A standard cookie baked with cinammon toast crunch crumbs

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1-2 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumbs (to roll dough in)


Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, cereal crumbs, baking soda, salt, and dash of cinnamon. In a second larger bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth.

Using a cookie scoop, roll dough into balls and roll around in crushed cereal. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet (make them maybe a little smaller than normal, as you can see the outsides of mine overcooked a bit).
Bake for 8-11 minutes, and remove from the oven.  Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.

Sidenotes: These taste pretty good. The Cinammon Toast Crunch flavor is there, but somewhat subtle. The only other thing is that the cookies were a little thin and flat, but just play around with them a bit to better suit your own personal preferences :).

The Ice Cream I Have Fallen Madly in Love With

So I was casually walking through the aisle at Kroger the other day, buying some baking supplies when this carton of ice cream caught my eye. Cake batter is my FAVORITE ice cream (go figure right?) so obviously I love me some Ben and Jerry's cake batter ice cream...it's a classic yellow cake batter ice cream with chocolate icing swirl, it's quite fabulous. But no, I'm not talking about that...

I'm talking about Kroger brand BIRTHDAY BASH!It's a cake flavored ice cream with confetti and blue icing swirl! OH MY GOSH! Why do I like this better than Ben and Jerry's you ask? Well, my all-time favorite boxed cake mix BY FAR is funfetti (there is just NOTHING like it) and this Kroger brand ice cream is basically the frozen version of funfetti cake...aka, I'm in love...

TRY IT! :)

"These are S'mores Stuff!": S'mores Cookies

Does anyone else think of "The Sandlot" when anyone references S'mores?! I do, and it reminds me also of summertime and camp fires which I LOVE. Theres nothing like the smell of a campfire. Brings me back to the days when I was little camping with my dad and brother roasting marshmallows and fishing and all that good summer fun! So this cookie is sort of an homage to the upcoming warm grill-out worthy weather (and to the fact that I'm hours away from departing for a Spring Break trip in Panama City Beach with 7 other super cool people in a super nice condo on the beach! YAY!)

I found this recipe on bakedperfection.com and didn't think anything needed changed (except I used dark chocolate as I almost always do, and used reduced-fat graham crackers because if theres anyway to tweak a recipe to make it a tad bit healthier without significantly sacrificing the taste and/or texture, I'm going for it). Also, you may notice that mine are a little undercooked and gooey in the middle, its just thats how I like them, therefore I put them in about a minute less than this recipe... anyways here they are!

S'mores Cookies

A cookie made with graham crackers, hershey chocolate bar and marshmallows.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash of cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups miniature chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
2 Hershey bars, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, and dash of cinnamon. In a second larger bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. Push 3 to 4 marshmallows and a few pieces of hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.

Alright folks, I'm off to enjoy 5 days on the beach and I'm taking these cookies with me!

Pinch Me I Must Be Dreaming! Thin Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

I had some thin mints left over from the cookies and just HAD to make a cupcake. I thought it would be tasty to crush cookies and put it in cupcake batter then make a green vanilla-mint frosting! These are soooooooo good if I do say so myself! In the words of one of my roomates "these are too die for!"

Make it even easier by buying boxed cake mix! I decided to make a devils food cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart and add in some mint extract myself and a vanilla frosting I found somewhere on allrecipes.com, I decided to add the mint for the sake of the thin-mint theme.

Pinch Me I must Be Dreaming: Thin Mint Cupcakes

A devils food chocolate cake with crushed thin mints baked in. It's topped with a green vanilla-mint buttercream frosting, green sprinkles and a chunk of a thin mint cookie.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3/4 cup hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon mint extract
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
1 sleeve thin mint cookies, crushed
Vanilla-mint frosting (recipe follows)
Green Sprinkles

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together cocoa and hot water until smooth. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Melt butter with sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat until mixture is cooled, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add vanilla, mint, then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the sour cream, and beating until just combined after each. Crush 1 sleeve of thin mints and add to the batter.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three- quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 15 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

Vanilla-Mint Frosting

Ingredients:
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons milk
6 thin mint cookies, cut into quarters
Green food coloring

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream 1 1/3 cups sugar with 1/2 cup butter or margarine, and salt. Blend extract, 2 tablespoons milk, and remaining sugar into mixture. Gradually stir remaining milk into frosting until desired spreading consistency is reached. Stir in desired amount of green food coloring and stir.

Frost each cupcake with frosting. Top with green sprinkles and a quarter chunk of thin mint cookie

Serve immediately or wait to top the cupcakes with cookies right before serving

Happy St Pattys Day!

St. Pattys Day Thin Mint Crunch Cookies

I don't know about anybody else but when I think of St. Patricks Day I think green(duh!) and when I think of green in terms of dessert, I think mint. My dad happened to send me a box of my favorite Girl Scout cookie (yay it's girl scout cookie season!). I was delighted to see the bright green box in my monthly care package from my daddy. I LOVE thin mints and they have been taunting me from the freezer (which it the best way to eat them by the way). So naturally, St. Pattys Day+green+mint= THIN MINTS!

But what can I make with those? I didn't have time to make cupcakes tonight (tomorrow we'll see!) so I thought I could make cookies...with cookies!

Everyone should have one or two go-to chocolate chip cookie recipes. I have one for more cake-like cookies and one that is a more chewy cookie. I decided on a more fluffy cookie and that would be the classic, impossible to beat, oh-so-good Nestle Tollhouse cookie. Eating this dough brings me right back to when my mom would make me Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies from scratch...divine. So therefore, this is a "Dame Good" idea using a classic recipe as a base.

St. Pattys Day Thin Mint Crunch Cookies

A classic chocolate chip cookie with added mint and crushed thin mint chunks and mini chocolate chips

Ingredients: (nestle tollhouse)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups crushed thin mint cookies
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
green food coloring

Directions:

Preheat Overn to 375 F.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl
Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla/peppermint extract in a large bowl until creamy
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
Gradually beat in flour mixture
Stir in cookies and chips
Stir in desired amount of food coloring
Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown
Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely

Enjoy!!

A 3-Course Mexican Meal for my Hardworking Man

I love cooking for people. Cooking is most fun when you have someone to share it with so naturally I love to cook for me and my boyfriend. He isn't around a whole lot because he travels for work and this week he was actually given the chance the be a manager for the week so he most definitely deserved a nice big meal made from scratch and with love.

Mexican food is my favorite (Italian is a close second) because I am a huge fan of heat and spicyness. So I decided to make him a 3-course Mexican inspired meal of mushroom quesedillas, mexican lasagna, and mexican crullers (churros).

Mushroom Quesedillas
I was inspired to make this by my all-time favorite restaraunt La Fiesta in my hometown of Troy, Ohio. They serve a mushroom quesedilla that is so tasty I just had to try to replicate it myself. Here we have a "Dame Good" recipe...

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 whole-wheat or multi-grain tortillas
About 1-2 cups fresh mushrooms of choice
About 1 cup of queso blanco or queso fresca (these specialty mexican cheeses are expensive so feel free to use any shredded mexican blend or even a white cheddar would be good)
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dry thyme
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream
salsa

Directions:
Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add oil, sliced mushrooms and onions to the hot skillet and heat until mushrooms are dark and tender (about 8 minutes)
Add minced garlic and saute for about 30 seconds
Remove from heat
Put desired amount of cheese on half of each tortilla, then cover with muchrooms and onions, fold over other half of tortilla
You can either bake the tortillas at 350F until cheese is melted or put them in a skillet and brown on both sides until cheese is melted
Cut tortillas into wedges and serve with salsa and sour cream

Mexican Lasagna
I found this recipe on foodnetwork.com, its by Rachel Ray so you know its good! I made a few changes to better satisfy my personal taste buds, so go to the foodnetwork.com to get origional recipe. Heres what I did.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 pounds ground chicken breast, available in the packaged meats case
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
1 cup medium heat taco sauce or 1 (14-oz) can stewed or fire roasted tomatoes
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1/4-1/2 cup chopped jalepenos or chiles
1 cup reduced-fat sour cream
Salt
8 (8 inch) whole-wheat or multigrain tortillas
1-2 whole bags shredded reduced-fat four cheese mexican blend cheese
2 scallions, finely chopped
½ cup fresh cilantro

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil - twice around the pan. Add chicken and season with chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika and red onion. Brown the meat, 5 minutes. Add taco sauce or stewed or fire roasted tomatoes. Add black beans, corn, and jalepenos/chiles. Heat the mixture through, 2 to 3 minutes then season with salt, to your taste. Stir in sour cream

Coat a shallow baking dish with remaining extra-virgin olive oil, about 1 tablespoon oil. Cut the tortillas in half or quarters to make them easy to layer with. Build lasagna in layers of meat and beans, then tortillas then cheese. Repeat: meat, tortilla, cheese again. Bake lasagna 12 to 15 minutes until cheese is brown and bubbly.

Top with the scallions and cilantro and serve with side of salsa and sour cream.

Mexican Crullers (Churros)
A dessert I didn't bake...I know its crazy! I have been wanting to make these a while but was a little intimidated. Turns out, they are way easy. They remind me of cinnamon twists from Taco Bell which I always HAD to get as a kid. I heart Taco Bell.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 to 5 eggs
Canola oil , for frying
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
To make the crullers: In a medium saucepan, heat 1 cup water, the butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt over medium-high heat until the edges of the liquid start to bubble. Add the flour all at once and stir briskly with a wooden spoon until well mixed and no lumps of flour remain.

Remove from the heat. Add 4 of the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well with a wooden spoon after each. The dough should look soft and glossy and keep a "hook" shape when the spoon is pulled from the dough. If not, beat in the last egg.
Scrape the dough into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Pour enough canola oil into a deep heavy skillet (cast iron is ideal) to fill 1-inch. Heat over medium heat until the tip of the handle of a wooden spoon gives off a slow steady stream of tiny bubbles.

Carefully pipe the dough into the oil, forming 6-inch crullers. Pipe only as many crullers into the oil as fit comfortably. Overcrowding the pan will result in soggy crullers. Fry, turning once, until golden brown on each side. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Put the sugar and the cinnamon in a paper bag. Crimp the top and shake well to mix. Drop a few crullers at a time into the bag and shake until coated. Best served as soon as possible

Everything took a little while but it all turned out great! I will definitely be making all of these again!