- Hey, guys.
Christmas is just a few short days away,
and if you are looking for a great
Christmas morning breakfast idea,
I've got just the thing for you.
It's my cinnamon bun breakfast puddings.
I love this idea because the whole thing
could be made the night before,
and all you have to is bake and frost and serve.
It's also a great alternative
if you had your heart set on cinnamon buns,
but then looked at a recipe and saw how much work they are.
This is gonna be 10 times easier,
and actually, in my opinion, taste 10 times better.
Let me show you how to make them.
Here's how this is all gonna work.
You're gonna take out a 12 cup muffin tin.
Grease it lightly with about a tablespoon of butter.
And then here's the real time-saving tip.
You're going to go buy some of that
cinnamon swirl raisin bread
that you can get just in the bread aisle
of your local supermarket.
I really love the Sun-Maid brand.
I think that it works perfectly,
because it has just the amount of sweetness and raisins,
and you don't have to do anything to it.
If you're one of those people who hate raisins,
and I know you're out there,
I've seen your comments and I get it,
you can also get a variety that doesn't have raisins.
I've see a version of Trader Joe's
that's just the cinnamon swirl bread,
and that would work just as well.
Then you're gonna take three slices of the raisin bread.
You're going to cut it into four slices vertically.
Then pivot the bread and cut it
into four slices horizontally.
Then you'll end up with equal size cubes.
And then you'll take those cubes
and start to just stuff them into the muffin wells.
At first you're gonna think,
"Eww, I have a lot of bread here."
But you do just want to pack it in there.
Because what is going to happen
is we're gonna create a custard,
and the custard is gonna soak into all that bread,
and it will come down a bit.
Just keep going cutting and stuffing, cutting and stuffing
until all of your bread is used up.
Then in a large bowl
you're gonna beat together five eggs
and a cup of half and half.
Here in the states we have this product called half and half
which is half milk and half heavy cream.
If you don't have that, you could just do
a 1/2 a cup of whole milk and a 1/2 a cup of heavy cream,
or double pouring cream,
I think some of you also know it as.
Then to that we're gonna add a tablespoon of sugar,
a teaspoon of vanilla extract,
then we're also gonna add
two teaspoons of fresh orange zest.
I love the combination, especially around Christmastime,
of cinnamon and orange and raisins.
It's just such a classic holiday flavor.
Then you're gonna take this mixture,
and you're going to transfer it into a Pyrex pitcher.
You just want something that's going to allow you
to easily pour this egg mixture into your muffin tin.
And then to make it easier,
sometimes what I'll do is remove a little bit
of a cube of bread and start to pour it in,
trying to find a little bit of a well.
You just want to continue through
filling up each well with this egg custard.
You want to go about 3/4 of the way full.
And sometimes it might take one or two passes,
because what will happen is that egg mixture
will start to get wicked up by the bread,
and so you want to make sure you can still see
some of the egg mixture to know that it's fully
about 3/4 of the way full.
Then once you're done doing that,
all you have to do is cover it with some foil
and pop in the fridge.
This is why this is so much better the night before,
because it is going to allow all of that bread
to soak up the custard,
and is going to create a really decadent,
almost like bread pudding effect.
Okay, so now that the first part
of the recipe is ready to go,
we can tackle the second part of the recipe:
The frosting.
And having this all done the day before
will also save you your sanity on Christmas morning
when things are at their craziness.
This is what you're gonna do.
In the bowl of an electric mixer,
you're going to add eight ounces of softened cream cheese.
Five tablespoons of softened butter.
I like to use the unsalted for this recipe.
Go ahead and beat that together
just until it's nice and combined.
And then you can slowly add a 1/2 a cup of powdered sugar,
also known as icing sugar or confectioner's sugar.
A teaspoon of vanilla,
and then 3/4 cup of heavy cream.
Go ahead and give that a beat,
and you'll see you'll have
a really lovely frosting on your hands.
Then what we're gonna do to make our lives even simpler,
we are going to transfer this into a pastry bag
fitted with a tiny tip.
Just a little round tip about an 1/8 of an inch.
And then to store it,
I will just prop it up in a Pyrex pitcher.
That way it's being held upright
which will allow all that frosting
to kind of settle down into the tip,
allowing it to really just be ready to go when you need it.
Here's how this is all gonna go down
on Christmas morning.
When you get up, you're gonna preheat your oven
350 degrees Fahrenheit.
While your oven is preheating,
then you can go ahead and take out your frosting
and allow it to come up to room temperature.
This will make it a lot more pliable
and more easier to work with
when we go to garnish our puddings.
You can remove your foil,
and you will notice all of that egg mixture
has been soaked up by the bread.
It'll actually look like there's no egg mixture left.
Not to worry.
That's exactly what you want.
Put them in the oven for 15 minutes,
just until the bread on top
starts to become golden brown and toasty.
At that point, you're gonna recover it with the foil
and allow it to bake for 10 more minutes.
Covering it with the foil will allow the puddings
to kind of puff up a little bit
and become even more cooked through.
Once your puddings are done
you can take them out of the oven,
and allow them to cool for just about 5 minutes or so.
That will allow them to set up a bit
and make them easier to transfer out of the muffin tins.
And then what I like to do is place them on a cake stand,
dust each one with some powdered sugar,
then pipe a little zigzag line of frosting on top,
add a little bit more of fresh orange zest,
and top each one with some freshly chopped pecans.
And there you have it.
Christmas morning breakfast is served.
I love this recipe because it has all of the decadent flavor
of a traditional cinnamon bun
without all of the hassle and work of a cinnamon bun.
And I tell ya, if you have in-laws in town,
or anybody else you want to impress,
this one is the surefire recipe to get the job done.
I hope you guys give this one a try,
and let me know what you think.
I know that this is what I'm going to be making
on Christmas morning breakfast,
and my kids go nuts for these.
I hope that yours do, too.
All right, you guys, if I don't see you before then,
have a very happy and safe Christmas,
and I will see you back here the day after Christmas
for a New Year's Eve appetizer.
Something I think you guys are gonna love.
All right, see you then.
Bye.
♫ Jolly old St. Nicholas
♫ Lean your ear this way
♫ Don't you tell a single soul
♫ What I'm going to say
♫ Christmas Eve is coming soon
♫ Now, you dear old man
♫ Whisper what you'll bring to me
♫ Tell me if you can ♫