Raise A Glass And We’ll Cinnamon Toast To The Caramel Apple Of My Eye

I’ve been having this weird hankering the past couple of months for Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.

Now I realize that for most people, they would simply go out and purchase their hearts desire, possibly consume it all in one sitting and then move on with their lives. In case you haven’t learned yet though, I’m not most people. Although to be perfectly honest, I had had the full intention of doing precisely that. I’d wanted to be able to procure this cinnamon-y deliciousness from the bulk store or something though because, the problem is, I don’t typically eat cold cereal for breakfast, so it would’ve been more of a snack, and I didn’t really want to be forced to buy a whole big box of it. Alas, the bulk store shattered all my dreams by not having it 🙁 . Full disclosure, the real reason I didn’t want to buy a whole big box of it, as tempting as it is, is mostly because I likely would’ve eaten it all in one sitting, and then I would’ve been sick of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for evermore and that just didn’t seem like the way I wanted to go.

(In trying to come up with a title for this post, I ran across the fact that Cinnamon Toast Crunch was involved in this super awesome meme. However, to me the real question is “Can They See Why Anyone WOULDN’T love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?”)

I love all things cinnamon, and all things toast, and of course, all things crunchy (well…maybe not all things crunchy. Although I’ve never had chocolate covered grasshoppers – and obviously never will – I just don’t think that would be something up my alley either 😉 . In case you were thinking “Amber, you can’t possibly love all things toast either. I mean burnt toast? C’mon, nobody likes that! Lawyered!” and then you’d get this self-satisfied and smug look on your face. Enjoy making that look for the last time though, as I will now be forced to approach you with my power sander and permanently remove that expression from your repertoire because, in actuality, I do like all levels of toast. In fact, my favourite way to enjoy fire roasted bread is when it’s super toasted (just-before-burnt is my toast Nirvana, but I wouldn’t say no to burnt toast either). It’s a good thing I don’t have epilepsy (and particularly not the epitomous form that attained infamy in one of those Canadian heritage minutes commercial – remember this one?) because I know I’d never clue in that the smell of burnt toast is a problem.). Basically what I’m saying is that I didn’t want to even risk beginning a lifelong taste aversion to something that combines all three of those things.

Now where am I going with this ranting and long winded, seemingly off-topic tangent? I’m glad you asked fair reader! I figured, since the purchasing of a massively huge boxful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (…and in case you were wondering, there is absolutely no post sponsoring going on here, it was 100% my own “can’t-get-it-out-of-my-mind” craving – although General Mills should really look into giving me a few kickbacks for the number of times I mention CTC in this post. I would also accept a lifetime supply 😉 ) was kind of a no-go since my complete lack of self-control was going to “force” me to eat the whole box in one sitting, I needed to find a way to have some of it as a snack and immediately have a use for the rest of it. So then I started thinking about what this stuff is actually made of – it’s basically wheat, cinnamon and sugar (and probably other things that aren’t actually that good for you, but “blah, blah, blah, I can’t hear you” 😉 ). It is also a super dry kind of cereal. Then my lightbulb moment happened “I wonder if I could just grind up a whole wack of cereal in my food processor, and use it instead of flour in a cookie recipe?”. I’m here to tell you, that you most definitely can!

Now of course, simple “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Flour” cookies is way too boring. So, to amp these little beauties up a little bit, I incorporated my usual obsession with soaking dried fruit in some type of alcohol (I’m a closet fruit soaked alcoholic apparently, if there’s ever dried fruit in something, I don’t know if I ever don’t use alcohol soaked fruit instead. Is this a problem? I say no. If you say yes, you may of course feel free to omit this step. It will definitely make the cookie name easier and faster to say). This time, I went for soaking dried apples in whisky (and a little bit of maple syrup for some extra Canadiana), in order to bring you these “Salted Cinnamon Toast Caramel Apple Whisky Cookies”. Sheeshers, that’s a long recipe title. I think I ate all the cookies in the time that it took me to say their name. Guess I’ll just have to make more. What? I’m trying to use up a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch here, multiple batches just might have to be a necessity. One scoopful for the cookies, one scoopful for me. Nom, nom, nom……