Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes

 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes – fluffy and moist vanilla cupcakes with Cinnamon Toast Crunch buttercream! The cereal is crushed up and used in the frosting! 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes - fluffy and moist vanilla cupcakes with Cinnamon Toast Crunch buttercream! The cereal is crushed up and used in the frosting!

Happy Sunday! Tomorrow my kids go back to school after 9 days off so we’re living it up with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes! And probably a trip to the park to fly some kites that I found in the back of my closet while packing.

My kids are total cereal connoisseurs so they were pretty impressed by these cupcakes. They were, however, more impressed with the Skylanders Skystones game that came in the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Do you remember being a kid and being SO EXCITED when there was a toy in the box? I can remember standing in the cereal aisle and asking my mom for a specific kind just because it had a toy. And lucky me, I was an only child so I didn’t even have to fight anyone for the toy!

Click for the full recipe

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Cinnamon Chip Bread (Great Harvest Copycat)

Cinnamon Chip Bread (Great Harvest Copycat Recipe)

Happy Thursday! We’ve almost made it to the weekend.

It’s actually officially the weekend around here. My kids have a 4-day for parent/teacher conferences – it’s nice to have them home but ugggghhhh, conferences. You guys know I cry every. single. time. that I have to go in there.

So for the first time in the history of me, I pointed at my husband and said, “I’m not going. You do it.”

And he is. 

Basically, today is the best day of my life. 

To make today even better, I’m going to make French toast with this amazing Cinnamon Chip Bread that I made yesterday.

Guys, I’m into the yeast again. 

This is supposed to be like the Great Harvest cinnamon bread but I’ve never tried it so I can’t really confirm. But I just looked it up and we totally have a couple Great Harvests here so I should probably go compare theirs to mine while my husband deals with the conferences. Right?

I can tell you that it’s the lightest, fluffiest bread ever and I love those cinnamon chips so much. And I love that some of the cinnamon chips melted a little during kneading so it almost looks like there are cinnamon swirls in the bread. 

For my afternoon snack yesterday, I smeared a pretty large piece of the bread with sunflower butter and then sprinkled more cinnamon chips on top… best snack ever. 

Cinnamon Chip Bread (Great Harvest Copycat Recipe)

Click for the full recipe

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Cinnamon Twists

Have you ever had the worst craving for a cinnamon roll but been stranded at home because your husband took your car to work because it’s snowing and he refuses to put new windshield wipers on his car? And you obviously can’t make cinnamon rolls from scratch because that would way too long. Plus you would be left with a pan of cream cheese frosting-covered cinnamon rolls and you’re already having trouble buttoning your jeans so yeah. Cinnamon rolls are out.

But these guys? All the taste of cinnamon rolls (without the frosting, obviously) but they’re a million times easier to make. Hands-on time for this recipe was less than 15 minutes!

I made these guys for Red Star Yeast and they are so delicious. It’s basically a soft yeast dough that’s sprinkled with pecans and cinnamon sugar before being rolled out and cut into strips. The strips are twisted and then baked.  The cinnamon twists are incredibly simple to make and like I mentioned, took hardly any time. I used Red Star Yeast’s Platinum and they rose beautifully and pretty quick considering how cold it’s been here lately.

If you’re looking for a quick, easy, comforting after-school snack or breakfast or maybe even dinner, you should definitely give these guys a try.

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Cinnamon Twists
from Red Star Yeast
Ingredients
For the dough:
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 3 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 4 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
For the filling:
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • 2 tablespoons butter melted
Instructions
  1. Preheat Oven to 375F
  2. In large mixer bowl, combine 2 cups flour, yeast, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt; mix well. Heat milk, water and 1/3 cup butter until very warm (120-130 F; butter does not need to melt). Add to flour mixture. Add egg. Blend at low speed until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed. By hand, gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and turn to grease top. Cover; let rise until dough tests ripe.
  3. PREPARE FILLING: Combine 1/3 cup sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
  4. Punch down dough. On lightly floured surface roll dough to a 12 x 8-inch rectangle. Sprinkle with nuts; press into dough. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture over dough. Cut dough in half crosswise. Cut each half into 6 strips, 2 inches wide. Twist each strip 2 or 3 times with cinnamon side out. Place twists in greased 13 x 9-inch cake pan. Cover; let rise in warm place until indentation remains after touching.
  5. Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool.

This post sponsored by Red Star Yeast. All opinions are my own.

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Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Bread

I’ve made a lot of pumpkin bread in my life my 5 years of cooking and this one right here is by far the best. Why you ask. Because it was absolutely exploding with cinnamon chips. Ex. Plod. Ing.

Oh yes.

The cake itself was ridiculously moist and pumpkin-y but the cinnamon chips stole the show. Y’all, don’t expect to see anymore pumpkin bread recipes on this blog – this is the only one I will ever make!

(You guys know I’m lying. I can’t help trying more! But this one is superb. Beyond superb.)

I made mini loaves but the recipe makes enough batter for one big one if you would rather do that. Can’t find cinnamon chips? Hershey’s has a locator!

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Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Bread
adapted from King Arthur Flour
Ingredients
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree not pumpkin pie filling
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla
  • 1½ cups all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 cup cinnamon chips
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease 2 mini loaf pans or 1 regular size loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, eggs, pumpkin and vanilla.
  3. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stirring to combine. Fold in the cinnamon chips.
  4. Spoon the batter into the prepared pans.
  5. Bake mini loaves for about 30-35 minutes and large loaves for 60-70 minutes. Test with a toothpick in the center of the bread to make sure it's fully baked. Remove the bread from the oven, and cool it on a rack.
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Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

My husband comes home for breakfast every morning so I’ve been making a real effort to have a hot breakfast ready for him. But that means coming up with something new everyday because the man just can’t handle Bisquick waffles everyday. He was so excited to see these pancakes and was even more excited when he tried them. The cinnamon sugar mixture becomes almost crunchy when it hits the pan and added something really fun to the pancake.

I know they don’t look simple but trust me, they are! You just make your batter as usual and after you put some in your pan, you draw a little swirl with the cinnamon sugar mix over top, then finish cooking as normal. I used a squirt bottle (that you can get really cheap just about anywhere) but a pastry bag would work as well.

I’ve made these twice within the past week. That should tell you how good they are.

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Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
Ingredients
  • 1 batch of your favorite pancake batter ready to be cooked
  • 1 stick of butter softened almost to the point of being melted
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
  1. Mix butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon together, heating it up in the microwave to get it pourable consistency if you need to. You don’t want the butter completely melted or it will come out of your squirt bottle (or pastry bag) too quickly and you won’t get a pretty swirl.
  2. Add pancake batter to your pan as normal and quickly make a swirl of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Cook the pancake until bubbles form on top and then flip.

 

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