Save It
So much of our enjoyment of foods comes from the memories they evoke, don’t you think?
Cinnamon toast.
Just saying the words and I see myself 8 years old sitting at our dining room table with assorted siblings, elbowing each other while we greedily reached for the sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on our warm buttered toast. (My sister probably doesn’t remember this, but she would skip the cinnamon and just sprinkle on sugar.)
Cinnamon toast was a treat. It took skill; if you weren’t careful holding that spoon you would end up with hilly clumps instead of an even spread.
When I mentioned to my friend Heidi that I wanted to write about cinnamon toast she declared, “But it’s so easy!” Then I asked her how she made hers. She mixes a little cinnamon with quite a bit more sugar in a bowl or a jar and then sprinkles over buttered toast.
Dear reader, you may think I am a complete ignoramus for admitting this, but never, ever had anyone in our family thought of mixing the two together before sprinkling. We buttered our toast, sprinkled on sugar and then the cinnamon. So naturally, we ended up with a lot of clumps of cinnamon. My father had to oversee the process to make sure we didn’t pour on too much sugar (which we did any time we could get away with it.)
I made cinnamon toast for my goddaughter and her sisters a while ago, mixing the cinnamon sugar first. Cinnamon is expensive, sugar is cheap. A little cinnamon goes a long way. So mix a little cinnamon into the sugar and you don’t waste the cinnamon.
The ratio I find that works for me is 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon to 1 tablespoon of sugar, or about 1:12. I checked this out with a friend who told me that his mother’s ratio for cinnamon toast was 1:10. So adjust to your liking.
For all you 8-year olds, in age or spirit, have some toast!
Cinnamon Toast Recipe
Feel free to play with the ratio of cinnamon to sugar to get it to how you like it. Some people like 1:3 cinnamon to sugar, some 1:12, and some in between.
Ingredients
- 2 slices of sliced bread
- 2 pads of butter, softened or room temp
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp white granulated sugar
Method
In a small bowl or jar, stir together the cinnamon and sugar so they are well mixed. Toast your bread. Slather the toast with butter. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the buttered toast.
Hello! All photos and content are copyright protected. Please do not use our photos without prior written permission. Thank you!
This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Simply Recipes. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.
There has been much discussion floating around the Internet about the relative merits of making cinnamon toast in the method described here compared to sprinkling the un-toasted bread with cinnamon sugar and toasting the slices in the oven. Either way will work, but with the method I've described, the child gets the joy of making her own individual slice of cinnamon toast. Even as an adult I recall the pleasure I had in carefully sprinkling the toast with the sugar and cinnamon, and then eating it right away. The satisfaction that comes from making something yourself, for yourself, is simply priceless. ~Elise
Links:
Like the flavor of cinnamon toast? Check out this cinnamon toast perfume. (Via Amy of Cooking with Amy)
Strawberry cinnamon toast from Fake Food Free
Heidi's daughter (my goddaughter) Piper making her cinnamon toast
Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Cinnamon Toast
Can I use brown sugar instead of white sugar? We don’t have white sugar in our kitchen.
Give it a shot, why not! Since brown sugar is moist and clumps up, it’ll be harder to sprinkle like regular cinnamon sugar, so you won’t get very even coverage on the toast. But it’s only toast, so if it doesn’t work out, lesson learned. It could be great, who knows!
As I read your story about making cinnamon sugar toast I thought about teaching my sons how to make this uber easy treat. Years ago I started keeping a mix of the divine blend in my pantry, I sometimes use it in other things. I KNOW, it’s a sin to use this for anything else but sometimes it’s the only thing that will work!!
Agree about the brown sugar, try with Demerara sugar. I just had some for dinner. It also goes well with a bowl of oatmeal.
xxxxxyyyyy
I too grew up on cinnamon toast. Our version was the broiler method, but when we went camping we learned to make it from a park ranger and his method is the bomb. In a pie pan combine powdered sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Heat up griddle. In another pie pan put milk. Dip slices of bread into milk until just dampened. Then dip bread into cinnamon sugar mixture. Cook french toast style on buttered griddle until sugar melts and carmelizes. Don’t burn your tongue gobbling it down cause it is fantastic.
The simplest way is to toast your bread in an electric toaster, slather it with butter and then shake/sift a mixture of cinnamon and sugar onto the toast.
King Arthur, Mc Cormick sell cinnamon sugar. Simply Organic sells cinnamon sugar blended with three different cinnamons. Mc Cormick’s used to come with a shaker top.
AFAIK, Morton & Bassett and SpiceHunter only sell cinnamon…no blended sugar.
Ooh, my favorite way of making cinnamon toast is to mix softened butter, cinnamon, brown sugar and a dash of vanilla, spread it on bread, then bake it in the oven for several minutes. Finish it off under the broiler and oh my goodness, it’s hard to stop myself from eating eight or ten pieces in one sitting (: