French Toast Casserole Muffins

Packing lunches and making bentos every day leaves me with a lot of bread scraps every week. What to do with them? I save them in a big gallon size Ziploc bag in the freezer!

Is that really worth it? Yes! Yes it is because I love making French Toast Casserole {Recipe HERE}

But this time around I had so many bread scraps I had enough for a casserole and some. 

I had a whole large bowl worth of bread scraps. Enough for another dish. I decided to simply make muffins with the left overs with a few changes to my original casserole recipe.

French Toast Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar were the result!

A delicious way to re-purpose those bread left overs or a forgotten slightly stale loaf of bread in the back of your pantry!

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of left over bread (about one gallon sized Ziploc bag full) - cubed
• 4 beaten eggs
• 1 1/2 cups of milk
• 2 tablespoons home made vanilla sugar (or substitute sugar + 1/4 teaspoon more vanilla)
• 1/3 cup of pancake mix
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• cinnamon sugar to taste
• if desired butter for crispier muffins

Instructions:

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
• Rip or cut all bento bread scraps into same size small cubes.
• Spray muffin tin with oil or use aluminum or silicone muffin cups (paper muffin cups will get soggy!)
• In large bowl mix eggs, milk, 2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar, and vanilla together.
• Then add 1/3 cup of pancake mix and mix well until only a few lumps are left.
• Carefully add the liquid to the bread cubes and coat well ( I use my hands to make sure it is evenly coated).
• Let bread mixture sit for one minute.
• Spoon with a tablespoon into muffin cups. Fill about 3/4. DO NOT OVERFILL! They will rise!
• Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar to taste and add a small piece of butter on top if you like your french Toast muffins to be crispy on top (can be omitted).
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 - 20 minutes or until brown and crispy.
• I serve mine with applesauce or fruit (or even a drizzle or maple syrup).

ENJOY!