Cinnamon Roll French Toast Sticks: All the Roll, None of the Fuss

Bread gets flattened, filled, dipped and baked into crispy cinnamon-sugar sticks you can dunk in syrup like a kid on a Saturday morning.

Crispy on the outside, cinnamon roll on the inside, dunked in syrup because that's the whole point.

Dowell Cooks

Cinnamon Roll French Toast Sticks: All the Roll, None of the Fuss

Bread gets flattened, filled, dipped and baked into crispy cinnamon-sugar sticks you can dunk in syrup like a kid on a Saturday morning.

Simple ingredients, delicious meals. That's the whole game.
Dowell Cooks

Hey friends! If you love cinnamon rolls but do not love waiting an hour for dough to rise, this one's for you. We're taking regular sandwich bread, flattening it, filling it with a cinnamon-brown sugar swirl, and baking it into crispy little sticks you dunk in syrup. It's basically a cinnamon roll that got its act together for a weekday morning.

Where this came from

This is one of those recipes that happens because you want cinnamon rolls at 7am and reality says no. Somebody, somewhere, looked at a loaf of sandwich bread and a rolling pin and figured out you don't need yeast and a two-hour proof to get that same swirl of butter and cinnamon. You just need a flatter piece of bread and a hot oven. I love recipes born out of impatience. This is one of them.

The one thing that'll trip you up

The bread tears if you roll it out too aggressively, especially near the crust. Go slow with the rolling pin and stop once it's thin and pliable, not paper thin. If a slice does tear, patch it with a little extra filling pressed into the gap and roll it seam side down anyway, nobody will know once it's baked. The other thing to watch: if the sticks aren't sealed tight seam side down, the filling leaks out onto your pan and burns before the outside gets crispy.

With filling, dip and syrup all in play, here's how the sweetness actually stacks up against everything else on the plate.

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Blog print edition

Here's what actually closes the gap between sugar rush and real breakfast.

What to put next to it

These sticks are sweet through and through, so the plate needs something that isn't. A cup of black coffee does a lot of work here, its bitterness is exactly the kind of contrast this dish is asking for. Scrambled eggs or crispy bacon on the side turns it from a sugar rush into an actual breakfast, since the sticks themselves are all carbs and butter with basically no protein.

Before we get into what bread to buy, a couple of quick buying notes worth knowing.

What kind of bread to grab

Skip the good bakery bread for this one, believe it or not. You want a regular, slightly sturdy sandwich loaf. It needs enough structure to take a rolling pin and hold a filling without shredding apart. If your bread is fresh out of the bag, let it sit out for an hour first. Slightly stale bread rolls flatter and holds the cinnamon filling better than a soft, fresh slice does.

Short on time? Make the filling and the cinnamon-sugar dip the night before and keep them covered on the counter or in the fridge. In the morning all you're doing is flattening bread, rolling, dipping and baking, which cuts your active time down to about ten minutes before the oven takes over.

Press the seam side down firmly on the baking sheet before it goes in the oven, and give the sticks a little breathing room, about an inch apart. That's the difference between sticks that hold their shape and crisp evenly, versus ones that pop open and go soft on one side.

Switch it up

Once you've got the base down, you can play with the filling all day. Swap the cinnamon for pumpkin spice in the fall, or cut the sweetness with a spice blend like baharat if you want something a little less candy-forward. Cream cheese swirled into the filling makes it taste closer to an actual cinnamon roll with icing. Whatever you do, keep the syrup on the side so everyone controls their own sweetness.

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Closing page

Curious where these get tested and filmed? Here's the setup behind Dowell Cooks.

In the kitchen

Kitchen: Studio

This is exactly the kind of recipe Dowell Cooks was built around.

From Dowell Cooks's About

Comfort Food, Italian Classics & American Favorites

Think cheesy pastas, crowd-pleasing bakes, nostalgic American classics, and the kind of Italian-inspired dishes that feel like a hug in a bowl.

balanced

Wondering which ingredient is doing the most damage, in the best way? Here's the breakdown.

Per serving

Questions from the kitchen

Can I make these ahead and reheat them?: Yes. Bake, cool completely, then store in the fridge for up to three days. Reheat in a 350°F oven for about five minutes to get the crisp back, the microwave will leave them soft.
Can I freeze cinnamon roll French toast sticks?: Freeze the baked and cooled sticks in a single layer, then bag them once solid. Reheat straight from frozen in the oven at 375°F for about ten minutes.
Why did my filling leak out during baking?: The seam wasn't sealed tight enough, or the sticks were placed seam side up. Press the seam firmly against the baking sheet before it goes in the oven.
Do I need to use an egg dip like regular French toast?: No egg here. These get their color and crisp from the butter dip and a hot oven, which keeps the inside from turning custardy.

That's it, that's the whole recipe. Ten slices of bread, a little butter and cinnamon sugar, twelve minutes in the oven, and you've got a breakfast that tastes like way more effort than it actually took. Make a batch this weekend and see who in your house notices they're basically eating cinnamon rolls in disguise. Browse all recipes for more like it.