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Sugar in the mornin'
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 11:44AM It is a well-known and more-than-adequately documented fact that I have a sweet tooth roughly the size of, like, that part of Alaska where we're not allowed to drill.
I always wake up hungry and it's a battle choosing breakfast food. Because I always want something sweet although sweets are not always available in my house.
Always always always.
So as I'm making coffee this morning I think: Cinnamon Toast.
No, not the disgusting cereal. The actual food.
How I love it.
You take some good multi-grain bread, very rich and textured. You spread it with a thin scrim of real butter, then lightly sprinkle on the cin-sug mixture. Bake on the toaster oven rack without the tray.
I have this sprinkler jar that used to be a candle. I couldn't wait to use up the candle so I'd have this cunning sprinkler jar. Yes, I know you can buy sprinkler jars without candles in them but I thought this was clever.
Just looking at the aforementioned cin-sug mingled in there makes me thrill.
Now I will say that growing up, we never made cinnamon toast this way.
What we did was, we turned on the oven broiler. I seriously doubt we owned a toaster but it didn't matter because that was no good for cinnamon toast anyway.
We got out a cookie sheet and put our bread on it. Not multi-grain; this was in the '60s but well before the granola generation healthified bread for the masses.
In other words: White bread, y'all.
We slathered our bread with margarine (never did we have real butter), then took a spoon and dipped it into the sugar bowl.
Next we loaded our bread with ridges of sugar, the more the better.
Then we got our cinnamon, which came in a little tin oblong of a box with a plastic top equipped with open circles and a crescent for either shaking or spooning.
Making sure that spooning-crescent thing was firmly closed, then purposefully poising the box directly over our butter sugar bread, we hit its bottom until obscene amounts of cinnamon dotted the landscape in the form of brownish-red clumps.
Some people thought it was all in the wrist. As in, a gentle side-to-side shaking motion over the sugar. Whatever. I was too impatient for such niceties.
In my opinion if you did it right, the cookie sheet sported a white-and-reddish-brown outline of what would ultimately be your toast. Sort of like crime-scene paint sprayed on the sidewalk.
We popped the whole thing under the broiler and it immediately started smelling ridiculously good.
When the sugar was bubbling and the cinnamon had gone dark-brown and gooey, and the edges of the bread all golden from that happy marriage with the margarine, we grabbed a potholder and retrieved our masterpiece.
Oh how it was to lift your slice of cinnamon toast, still soft on the bottom so that your fingers made big craters in it, but all crusty on the top with what we now know was the caramelization process.
You consumed it lustily, quickly, trying so hard not to burn your tongue, washing everything down with cold milk.
Rustic. Elemental. Almost primitive in its unbridled lusciousness.
Forget the cin-sug mixture in the ersatz candle jar! Forget the toaster oven!
I think I'll make my breakfast the right way tomorrow.
Reader Comments (13)
I am sooooooooooooo comin over for breakfast girly!..My sweet tooth could give yours a run for your money!! HUGS! yummy!
I've got a sweet tooth that size too! That is a pretty good idea for getting some sugar into your life early on in the day without being too bad. Love your photos too!
omg.....I think you've started something!!!Hahaaaa
I Want Some!!!!
hughugs
That's exactly the way I make mine, and I love it. I admit that I still like the old white bread version and still fix it occasionally. Now I'm hungry!
Never broiled mine. Just toasted in toaster.
Meanwhile, mix sugar/cinnamon in little bowl.
Spread toast with butter and sprinkle on sugar/cinnamon mix.
Eat.
Make more!!!!!!!!!!!!
,-) -giggles-
Not any more though. Can't eat gluten. Can't eat butter. Bahhhh, humbug. ,-)
~♥~
@Angel ... come as often as you can and stay as long as you like! As long as the coffee holds out we're all set.
@Jenners ... thanks for dropping by, I love your book blog. And thanks for the compliment!
@Donna ... you mean you can smell my cinnamon toast all the way down in Texas?? That's how seductive it is.
@Debbie ... I hope someday we can share some while we sit and chat!
@Auntie A ... I have seen my sister-in-law, who is from Ohio, make cinnamon toast that way. Must be a northern variety! But as we know, it's all good. I wish you could still eat this wonderful snack but at least you have precious memories ...
I make mine the way Aunt Amelia does - you're right, must be the Northern way. You way sounds great though. I'll have to try it!
@Mari ... no kidding? You try it my way and I'll try it yours, and we'll compare notes. I don't know how we could go wrong either way.
Hey, there, Miss Jenny! How ya been? I looooooove cinnamon toast. Also, Mom used to just take white bread, slather it with butter and sprinkle a thick layer of sugar on it - not toasted - and that was delish!
@Tracie ... HALLLLOOOOOO girlfriend!!! Thought about you the other day and wondered how you were loving being a grandma. I think I know ... uhm, butter sugar bread? I'm in.
Oh my goodness, I'll need to make that tonight for my tea.
@Irene ... girl you will not regret that decision. Sugar in the evenin' may be even better.
Hey, Jenny, just wanted to let you know that I'm back to blogging. couldn't stay away, I missed everyone too much. Come by and "sit a spell," won't you? (Being a Grandma is THE BEST!!!)