On school mornings, breakfast would usually involve a bowl of cereal (preferably Frosted Mini-Wheats for me), and maybe a fruit or half a grapefruit sprinkled with a little sugar. But sometimes, I would make a special request for cinnamon toast, which my mom would make for me by generously smearing hot pieces of toast with lots and lots of butter, and then a good sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar. Best breakfast ever in my opinion, but not just because it was sweet and cinnamony: my mom made it especially for me.
I think most of us grew up eating cinnamon toast for breakfast or as a snack, but as adults, when was the last time you had a slice? Sadly, I think I might have made cinnamon toast for myself maybe once or twice in my entire adult life, and with the nostalgic Christmas season upon us, it's one of the comfort foods I've been craving.
I put together three festive sweet butter recipes, perfect for Christmas brunch, and of course a fourth recipe for the classic cinnamon sugar butter because that's what I was craving. These are all extremely easy to make and can be tweaked to suit your taste buds. Sweet compound butters can be thrown together in literally minutes if you have some softened butter in your kitchen (which you probably do since we are all in peak Christmas cookie production mode) with odds and ends of the ingredients you've probably stocked up on for all your holiday baking. These sweet compound butters would make lovely homemade hostess gifts if you put them in mason jars too.
For this post, I made small sticks of butter using a silicone pan. By the way, I don't recommend using fresh fruit to make compound butters because given the sugar in each recipe, the fruit will lose water as the butter chills and then the butter gets messy and isn't as pretty. Trust me, I know from experience. Definitely stick to candied or dried fruits and peel.
Cinnamon sugar butter
Ingredients
- 115 grams unsalted butter, ½ cup, softened
- 26 grams granulated sugar, 2 tbsp
- 2 grams ground cinnamon, 1 tsp
Instructions
- Cream together the ingredients. Transfer to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator.
Cranberry honey butter
Ingredients
- 115 grams unsalted butter, ½ cup, softened
- 15 mL honey, 1 tbsp
- 40 grams dried cranberries, ¼ cup, chopped finely
- 10 mL clementine zest
Instructions
- Mix together the ingredients. Transfer to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator.
Candied orange butter
Ingredients
- 115 grams unsalted butter, ½ cup, softened
- 26 grams granulated sugar, 2 tbsp
- 40 grams candied orange peel, ¼ cup, chopped finely
- 10 mL clementine zest
Instructions
- Mix together the ingredients. Transfer to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator.
Gingerbread butter
Ingredients
- 115 grams unsalted butter, ½ cup, softened
- 10 mL fancy molasses, 2 tsp
- 13 grams light brown sugar, 1 tbsp
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- 1 pinch ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Cream together the ingredients. Transfer to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator.
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