These Christmas morning muffins are made with Greek yogurt, filled with rosemary, dried cranberries, nutmeg and vanilla bean. Topped with a cinnamon crumble and vanilla nutmeg glaze they’re the perfect festive bite for Christmas morning.
Christmas morning has always meant pandoro in my family. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically panettone’s simpler cousin. No dried fruit in it, just sweet buttery (omg, so.much.butter) Italian cake/bread doused in powdered sugar. Every year since we were little, my grandmother would source about 15 of them from some legit Italian deli or Arthur Ave. in the Bronx (they come in a box, imported from Italy) and pass them out to all the family members on Christmas Eve so we’d get to wake up to deliciousness the next morning. Now that grandma is gone, my mom has dutifully taken over this responsibility and my Christmas pandoro is already sitting on the sideboard in my dining room just waiting for Christmas morning.
That said, if you try to eat just pandoro for breakfast, you’ll either a. eat about 2,500 calories worth of butter and sugar in about 5 minutes and/or b. be hungry about 10 seconds later because there’s absolutely no satiety to pandoro. Trust me on this one, after 33 years, I’ve learned.
Christmas morning is no time for eggs and other practical breakfast things though. No, no, no. It’s Christmas, it’s a magical day, it requires magical food. So while I totally encourage you to try pandoro if you’ve never had it, I’m also going to suggest these Greek yogurt Christmas morning muffins.
Filled with dried cranberries, rosemary, nutmeg, vanilla bean paste, topped with a cinnamon sugar crumble and then glazed with a nutmeg vanilla bean icing, there’s no questioning their Christmas morning worthiness. And unlike pandoro, a muffin or two won’t set you back a days worth of calories and fat either.
I’m partnering with the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council (ADADC) who is supporting the Great American Milk Drive which delivers thousands of gallons of milk to families who would otherwise go without with their #GiveAGallon Milk Challenge that launched yesterday.
Milk is the no. 1 nutritious product requested by food bank clients, but it is rarely donated. Nutritionists recommend 3 servings of milk a day, which is about a gallon each week, but 46 million Americans served by Feeding America only get on average 1 gallon of milk ALL year. Of the pounds of food available in food banks, only 5.3 percent is dairy, and 95 percent of food banks say they don’t receive enough milk to meet their clients’ needs.
With the #GiveAGallon Milk Challenge, every time a photo is posted on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook of a person, group or pet wearing a white mustache with “#GiveAGallon and text “MILK” to 80077” from Dec. 14, 2015 to Jan. 15, 2016, ADADC will donate $1 to Feeding America’s Great American Milk Drive, until $25,000 is donated.
If you want to see how many gallons have been donated to food banks in your state, and/or make donations directly, check out www.MilkLife.com/give. Also, join in on the twitter party fun this Thursday, Dec. 17th, $1 for each guest will be donated to the Great American Milk Drive. Details in the graphic below!
Also be sure to check out the other dairy filled recipes from these bloggers supporting the campaign too!
Slow Cooker Snowflake Hot Chocolate | Mini Cheddar Ranch Cheese Ball Bites | White Chocolate Snickerdoodle Milkshake | Savory Coeur la Crème with Cranberry | White Hot Chocolate | Eggnog Muffins | Eggnog Dutch Baby | Blueberry Pomegranate Smoothie
Greek Yogurt Christmas Morning Muffins
These Christmas morning muffins are made with Greek yogurt, filled with rosemary, dried cranberries, nutmeg and vanilla bean. Topped with a cinnamon crumble and vanilla nutmeg glaze they're the perfect festive bite for Christmas morning.
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat white flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon freshly chopped rosemary
- 1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup 2% plain Greek yogurt
- 1/3 cup milk
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste
Crumble topping
- 1 tablespoon cold butter, diced
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- pinch kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Glaze
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- milk to thin
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a muffin tin with baking spray and set aside.
- Combine the flours, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, sugar, rosemary and cranberries in a large bowl.
- Whisk together the eggs, Greek yogurt, milk, butter and vanilla bean paste in a medium bowl until smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until incorporated.
- Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin tins.
- Make the crumble topping by combining all the ingredients in a small bowl and working the diced butter into the mixture using your fingers or a fork until the texture of coarse meal. Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the muffin batter in the tins.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes until set.
- Remove from oven, let cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
- Make the glaze by combining all the ingredients in a small bowl and stirring. Add milk as you go until desired consistency.
- Drizzle the glaze over completely cooled muffins and serve.
*This post is sponsored by the ADADC. All content and opinions are my own.
Looks like a perfect breakfast for Christmas morning <3
We love greek yogurt, so these muffins are just perfect for my family.
Happy Holidays,
Laura
LOVE that you added rosemary AND cranberries. Such a festive way to start the day!
Love the story :) And would totally love these!!
These sound like a great Christmas breakfast!
I’ve never heard of pandoro, but it sounds incredible. These muffins you’ve made look equally delicious. I’m absolutely dying over the crumble topping and glaze! What a wonderful Christmas morning treat!
We both have muffins on our minds today! I have never heard of pandoro, but the way you described makes me want some now! I absolutely LOVE the flavors in these muffins and as usual, your pictures make me DROOL!
Magical food, aka carbs… All the carbs! Better yet, carbs drizzled with a sweet glaze. Love these muffins.
These muffins look so great! I love crumbs and the glaze..yummy!
For being lightened-up, these sure look decadent! And I love love love the rosemary throughout, it’s my favorite winter herb!
Wow, so many wonderful ingredients in these! Not only do they sound amazing, they’re beautiful too! Wonderful job, I really wanna make these! :D
I’m a huge fan of greek yogurt in breakfast breads. I love the addition of rosemary into an otherwise sweet muffin – such a great flavor combo. Now I want four or five! :)
A friend makes a similar version each year and delivers them fresh as her gift to us..
These muffins look so good! They are packed full of all the things I LOVE! Pass a few my way :)
Baking breakfast for Christmas morning ahead of time is essential! And these are perfect!
These look wonderful and I look forward to making them. What is vanilla bean paste and/or how does person make it?
It’s an alternative to vanilla extract. If you don’t have any on hand or can’t find it in the store (it’s usually in the spice section where you’d find vanilla extract) just use the same amount of vanilla extract, it’s a 1 to 1 substitution.
I’ll definitely be baking these tomorrow! I was thinking about doing some simple french toast for Christmas breakfast, but these look too good not to try, and what better to use as an excuse to bake something fancy than Christmas day? :)