Air Fryer French Toast Sticks

French toast sticks are what happens when a good idea meets a small child's operating system. Kids don't want cutlery in the morning; they want something they can hold in a fist and dunk with intent. The fast-food chains figured this out decades ago and sold it to a generation from freezer bags. The homemade version is better in every measurable way, and the air fryer removes the one thing that made it a weekend-only project: standing at a skillet flipping soggy strips in foaming butter while the first batch goes cold.

In the basket, the custard sets and the surface toasts all at once, no flipping anxiety, no butter smoke. The honest tradeoff is that you lose the fried lacquer a skillet gives — that faintly caramelized crust where custard meets hot fat. What you get instead is a puffed, evenly golden stick that's crisp at the edges and custardy in the middle, plus the freedom to unload the dishwasher while it cooks. On a school morning we'll take that trade every time.

Two things matter more than the recipe: use sturdy, slightly stale bread, and dip fast. Brioche or Texas toast has the crumb to absorb custard and stay standing; sandwich bread dissolves. These also freeze brilliantly — cook, cool, freeze flat, then re-crisp straight from frozen at 350°F for 4 minutes. That's a homemade freezer breakfast that beats the boxed version on flavor and on the label: just bread, eggs, milk, and cinnamon.

A perforated liner saves you scrubbing baked-on custard off the basket grate — cheap insurance for every eggy recipe in this book.