Living, laughing, learning, and loving every day.: Pioneer Woman Inspired Cinnamon Toast

I have fond memories of eating cinnamon toast as a child. My Grandpa always made it just right – using a method I always called “butter-spot toast”. He made it for me most mornings before I went to school and served it with strawberries and sugar or a grapefruit.

Now, floating around Pinterest is a link to how to make cinnamon toast the Pioneer Woman’s way. It has been repinned like crazy by most of my friends and family so I have had to look at those delicious pictures about every time I log on to my account. Finally, though, I succumbed to the temptation to open the link and take a look at the recipe: real butter and whole wheat. I expected nothing less.

If there are two things that go together less than water and oil, it might be The Pioneer Woman and gluten-free, allergy-friendly food. Like Paula Deen, everything she creates looks sinfully wonderful despite the fact that it might not be the healthiest choice. But holy cats…I cannot get the images of her cinnamon toast out of my mind.

And so, after completing a great workout this morning, I decided to cancel out all (and perhaps more) calories burned by making my own Pioneer Woman inspired allergy-free cinnamon toast.

Ingredients:

Green Bakery GF vegan cinnamon raisin bread – it’s local!

Earth Balance soy-free vegan buttery spread

Sugar

Cinnamon

GF powdered vanilla

My methods were not incredibly exact. I set out six slices of bread to thaw (it comes frozen) and scooped out a little more than a tablespoon of spread for each slice and put it into a shallow bowl. I added about ½ cup of sugar (insert gasps here), about 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon of the vanilla (1/4 teaspoon of my powdered vanilla = 1 teaspoon liquid vanilla). Use a fork to combine. I used my sense of taste to tell me what I needed more of…in this case, I needed more of nothing, but taste yours to see if you feel the same way!

Spread a good amount of the cinnamon spread onto each slice of semi-thawed bread. Spread it all the way to the edges. I lathered mine on pretty thick. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, then broil on high for another 3-4 minutes. Watch it closely so that it doesn’t burn.