Thanks to Dixie Crystals and Zulay Kitchen for sponsoring this post. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. This post contains Amazon affiliate links – they don’t cost you anything, but may earn a small commission to help fund this blog. Thanks!

Traditionally on Christmas mornings I bake cinnamon rolls for my family. I make them using refrigerated dough out of a can, but we love them! But this year, I’m going to make homemade cinnamon roll donuts instead! So I cooked up some as a trial run last weekend. I am sharing my recipe as part of the 5th annual 12 Days of Holiday Ideas event, hosted by Shirley of Intelligent Domestications  and Erlene of My Pinterventures.

Between Nov. 11th and December 6th there will be hundreds of new ideas shared by over 55 Co-host bloggers!  Go here to see our kick-off collection of Holiday ideas as well as all of this year’s talented participating DIY and Foodie Blogs. Download this year’s November and December calendars with all of the topics and dates so you can make plans to watch for ideas!

Today we are featuring Christmas breakfast ideas!

Cinnamon Roll Donuts & Christmas Day Spread

I was inspired to create my cinnamon roll donuts by my friends at Zulay Kitchen — the website has a wonderful collection of time-saving, money saving kitchen gadgets for the home chef. The folks at Zulay kitchen kindly sent me the new Zulay Kitchen Premium Non Stick Donut Pan.

The Zulay Kitchen Non-Stick Donut Pans make it easy to make 6-12 donuts at home, so I figured I’d give it a shot! A big incentive for me to use these pans is that they are dishwasher safe! (This will be a big time saver during the holidays!)

Zulay Kitchen also sent me their Cold Brew Coffee Maker and their Milk Boss Electric Milk Frother. My daughters and I like to make lattes, so I figure our new Zulay Kitchen goodies will be perfect for Christmas morning!

The Zulay Kitchen cold brew coffee maker can make both cold and hot coffee! It also brews tea, which I tend to drink more than coffee. The carafe is made out of shock-resistant glass and features a stainless-steel filter and non-slip silicone base. I made myself some cold brew Adagio decaf Ceylan tea while making the donuts. It was quite delicious!

To make the tea, all I did was put a few teaspoons of the loose leaf tea in the Cold Brew Coffee Maker’s stainless steel mesh filter and let it brew for a few minutes.

I like that the Cold Brew Coffee Maker’s silicone base protected the bottom of my brewer as well as the surface of my kitchen’s wood kitchen table. The decaf tea was a great choice for a cold brew — the tea was so light and refreshing!

The Zulay Kitchen milk frother makes it easy to make froth for coffees and teas in minutes! My daughter loves coffee lattes, while I like to make green tea lattes!

I used the milk frother to make myself a green tea latte (using Matcha Green Tea Powder) to have with a cinnamon roll donut!

Baked Donuts Recipe

I got my recipe for baked donuts from Dinner at the Zoo.The recipe was quick and easy to prepare, and the donuts came out great! I only made a minor addition of extra nutmeg to the recipe.

I decided to use Julie Blanner’s Easy Cinnamon Roll Glaze. Her glaze requires just 4 ingredients: powdered sugar (also known as confectioner’s sugar), butter, milk and vanilla. I modified the recipe a little to add some brown sugar to lend the donuts a cinnamon roll taste.

A key to this recipe is a non-stick donut pan. The Zulay Kitchen Premium Non Stick Donut Pan worked perfectly! I received a set of 2 from Zulay – each pan makes 6 donuts, so I easily can make a dozen with the two pans. The donuts came out light and fluffy, and they released easily from the pans once the donuts were baked.

It’s important to only fill the donut pans about 3/4s of the way full, or otherwise you will lose the donut shape. (The batter will flow to where the donut holes should be.)

A plus is that the batter I used can be made a day before and stored overnight. I’ll be making this batter on Christmas Eve so my family can have donuts Christmas morning!

Ingredients

For the donuts

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar (I used Dixie Crystals pure cane sugar)
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Cooking spray

For the Cinnamon Roll Glaze/Icing

Baking Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a donut pan with cooking spray.
• Place the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine.
• Add the eggs, butter, milk and vanilla extract to the bowl. Stir until smooth.
• Place the batter in a piping bag or freezer bag. Snip off the tip of the bag with scissors.
• Pipe the batter into the wells of the two donut baking pans. 
• Bake the donuts for 10 minutes. Let the donuts rest for 3 minutes, then remove them from the pan and place on a cooling rack.
• Let all of the donuts cool completely.

Icing/Glaze Instructions (courtesy of Julie Blanner)

1. Melt butter.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine powdered sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and milk.
3. Blend until smooth with a spoon or spatula and pour over warm donuts.

If you like, you can also make a quick white glaze to pour over the cinnamon roll icing — just mix a cup of powdered sugar with 1-2 teaspoons of milk until you have a consistency that you can pour over the donuts. Easy!

These donuts are so tasty — my puppy was hoping for one, too! I didn’t give him one, but I let him lick the spoon after I made the cinnamon roll icing. He loved it!

Be sure to pin this recipe for later!

Christmas Day Spread

My daughters, husband and I are planning to spend a leisurely Christmas morning together with our puppy! We like to stay in our pajamas, open our gifts and enjoy some tasty treats! Besides the cinnamon roll donuts I plan to put out a simple and easy spread of food that we can nosh on.

I adore cheese — especially Cabot cheese! I visited a Cabot store when my family and I traveled to  Vermont last summer.

The Cabot store had a huge selection of cheeses that we could taste. I’ve always loved Pepper Jack Cheese. While there, I decided that Cabot has the best Pepper Jack cheese I’ve tasted! Their pepper jack is just slightly spicy and very creamy.

For Christmas, I think it would be fun to use one of my Mini Gingerbread Man Cookie Cutters to make a plate of gingerbread men-shaped cheese slices with crackers. The flecks of red and green peppers in the Cabot pepper jack cheese helps to make the platter extra festive!

Be sure to check out my friends’ DIY Christmas breakfast ideas below. (If the photos of my friends’ recipes don’t readily appear below, please click on the blue Inlinkz button to see them.)

MEET OUR GIVEAWAY SPONSORS WHO HAVE GENEROUSLY DONATED FABULOUS PRIZES FOR THE BIG CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY!

DecoArt  winner will receive a prize package valued at $100! Dixie Crystals/Imperial Sugar winner will receive a Keurig Coffee Maker valued at $100! Oriental Trading winner will receive an OrientalTrading.com gift card valued at $200! Cabot Cheese winner will receive a gift basket of Cabot products valued at $75! Burlap Fabric winner will receive a prize pack of products valued at $50! Zulay Kitchen winner will receive one Milk Frother and a Lemon Squeezer valued at $21 It’s Home To You winner will receive one wooden Santa sign valued at $65

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