Recipe: Creamy Stuffed French Toast

When I was in third grade, I entered a bake off hosted by our local library. The day of the competition, my mom helped me gather the ingredients from our fridge and pantry to make the gingersnap cookie recipe I had chosen, at which point we discovered we were out of vanilla extract. My ever resourceful mother pulled a bottle of orange extract from the back of the cupboard and suggested we have a little fun with the recipe. The results were delicious, and the spicy ginger cookies rocked an added layer of intrigue in the form of orange extract’s fresh citrus flavor.

That was my first experience using extracts to easily change up the flavor of a recipe, and it was far from my last. Mostly recently, I used four different McCormick extracts — coconut, maple, orange, and rum — to turn one amazing creamy stuffed French toast recipe into four.

Even in its original plain iteration, this creamy stuffed French toast tastes special. The lightly sweetened whipped cream cheese filling gives the breakfast favorite a flair of weekend decadence. Employing my long-standing, simple trick of adding flavor extracts, it’s also versatile. McCormick Maple Extract adds depth, McCormick Orange Extract gives it a sunny spin, and McCormick Coconut Extract or Rum Extract makes it a tropical morning.

No matter the flavor, I can rest easy knowing McCormick extracts are made with real ingredients. They’re also non-GMO, gluten-free, and have no corn syrup, ensuring the best possible flavor and end result.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I came in first in that third grade bake off. Now any time I use a flavor extract to add an exciting twist to a recipe, I feel like I’m winning.