Best Spices for French Toast

French toast is bread soaked in an egg-and-milk custard and cooked in a pan, so whatever spice goes into the custard ends up in every bite. The three extension-service recipes cited here all use vanilla and cinnamon, and two offer nutmeg as an alternative. Ginger and ready-made pie-spice blends are optional extras. This page covers what each one brings, how much the recipes use, and what to know about cinnamon types. Quantities appear only where a named recipe gives them.

At a glance

Spice	What it brings	In the recipes cited
Cinnamon	Sweet, warm, woody aroma; the default	All three¹²³
Vanilla	Rounded sweetness behind the spice	All three¹²³
Nutmeg	Warm, nutty note	As an alternative to cinnamon in two¹²
Ginger	Sharper warmth	Not in these recipes; an optional extra
Pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice	Several warm spices in one	McCormick suggests apple pie spice for French toast⁴

How much spice the recipes use

Recipe	Eggs and milk	Spice	Vanilla	Bread
Food Hero, Oregon State University Extension¹	2 eggs, ½ cup milk	¼ tsp cinnamon or nutmeg	½ tsp	4 slices
Healthy Families, University of Tennessee²	4 eggs, 1 cup milk	½ tsp ground cinnamon or nutmeg	½ tsp	8 slices
Montana State University Extension³	2 eggs, ½ cup milk	2 tsp ground cinnamon, “or to taste”	½ tsp	6 slices

The cinnamon ranges from ¼ teaspoon to 2 teaspoons for a similar amount of custard, an eightfold spread, so “to taste” is the honest summary. A starting point between those, with more dusted on at the table, is our suggestion, not a sourced figure.

Cinnamon: the default

Two kinds of bark are sold as cinnamon. Ceylon or “true” cinnamon is Cinnamomum verum, native to Sri Lanka; cassia covers several species, including Cinnamomum aromaticum, native to southeast China and Vietnam. Both are in the laurel family, Lauraceae.⁵⁶ Cassia is the type most often sold in North America, according to NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.⁷ The Netherlands Enterprise Agency’s CBI market study describes Ceylon as the milder and finer of the two.⁸ In our kitchen judgment, cassia gives the bolder, candy-like cinnamon flavor most Americans expect in French toast, and Ceylon a gentler one. For a full comparison, see Ceylon vs. cassia cinnamon; for the individual types, see Ceylon cinnamon, cassia cinnamon and Saigon cinnamon.

A note on coumarin. Cassia averages about 3,000 mg of coumarin per kg in German monitoring data,⁹ and Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) calculates that a 60 kg adult reaches the tolerable daily intake with about 2 g a day of cassia with average coumarin content.¹⁰ A US study found only traces of coumarin in C. verum bark,¹¹ so people who eat a lot of cinnamon every day may prefer Ceylon. For more, see Ceylon vs. cassia cinnamon.

In our judgment, ground cinnamon tends to clump in the custard; whisking it into a little sugar or melted butter first helps it spread. If you have none, see cinnamon substitutes; if you added too much, see too much cinnamon.

Vanilla: the background note

All three recipes add ½ teaspoon of vanilla.¹²³ Vanilla’s flavor comes from the whole cured pod, not just the seeds: fresh beans contain an odorless vanillin glucoside, and the fully cured fruit contains about 2% vanillin, according to Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages.¹² In our judgment, scraping a pod into the custard gives visible specks and a strong flavor, while extract is easier to measure. In the US, a product labeled vanilla extract must contain at least 35% ethyl alcohol by volume; with less, it is vanilla flavoring.¹³ For substitutes, see vanilla extract substitutes; for powder, see vanilla powder vs. vanilla extract.

Nutmeg: the alternative

Two of the recipes offer nutmeg instead of cinnamon.¹² Nutmeg is the seed of Myristica fragrans, native to the Banda Islands in Maluku;¹⁴ the same fruit gives a second spice, mace.¹⁵ PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) notes that in most countries grated nutmeg is used in small quantities to flavor confectionery,¹⁶ and a small quantity is the right instinct here too. Freshly grated is more aromatic than pre-ground in our judgment; see fresh nutmeg vs. ground nutmeg and cinnamon vs. nutmeg. The National Capital Poison Center, which covers nutmeg in an article on kitchen cautions, says none of the foods and flavorings it discusses is dangerous used as recommended.¹⁷ If you overdo it in a batch, see too much nutmeg.

Ginger: sharper warmth

Ginger is the rhizome of Zingiber officinale, in the Zingiberaceae, the same family as turmeric.¹⁸¹⁹ None of the recipes here uses it, so it is an option rather than a standard. In our judgment ground ginger mixes into a custard more easily than fresh, while fresh grated ginger gives a brighter, sharper bite. See fresh ginger vs. ground ginger.

Spice blends

A blend is a shortcut to several warm spices at once.

Blend	Label ingredients	Source
McCormick Pumpkin Pie Spice	Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, sulfiting agents	McCormick²⁰
McCormick Apple Pie Spice	Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice	McCormick⁴

McCormick lists French toast among the uses for its apple pie spice.⁴ Neither label lists cloves, so cloves and allspice depend on the brand; check the label. See pumpkin pie spice substitutes.

French Toast, Food Hero, Oregon State University Extension Service. extension.oregonstate.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
French Toast, Healthy Families, University of Tennessee. healthyfamilies.tennessee.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
French Toast, Buy Eat Live Better, Montana State University Extension. montana.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
McCormick Apple Pie Spice, product page. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³
Cinnamomum verum J.Presl, Plants of the World Online, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
Cinnamomum aromaticum Nees, Plants of the World Online, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
Cinnamon: Usefulness and Safety, NCCIH, 2024. nccih.nih.gov · Regulator ↩
The European market potential for cinnamon, CBI. cbi.eu · Regulator ↩
FAQ on coumarin in cinnamon and other foods, BfR. bfr.bund.de · Regulator ↩
Cassia cinnamon with high coumarin contents to be consumed in moderation, BfR. bfr.bund.de · Regulator ↩
Wang et al., Cassia Cinnamon as a Source of Coumarin in Cinnamon-Flavored Food and Food Supplements in the United States, J. Agric. Food Chem., 2013. agris.fao.org · Peer-reviewed ↩
Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia), Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩
21 CFR Part 169 Subpart B, eCFR. ecfr.gov · Regulator ↩
Myristica fragrans Houtt., Plants of the World Online, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
Production, handling and processing of nutmeg and mace, Introduction, FAO, 1995. fao.org · Reference work ↩
M. Flach and M. Tjeenk Willink, Myristica fragrans, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩
Kitchen surprises and cautions, Rose Ann Gould Soloway, National Capital Poison Center. poison.org · Reference work ↩
Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Plants of the World Online, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
Curcuma longa L., Plants of the World Online, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
McCormick Pumpkin Pie Spice, product page. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩

The Best Spices for French Toast: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Vanilla and Warm Spice Blends