Magnolia Bakery's Cream Cheese Breakfast Buns

Recipe Review: The perfect breakfast pastry- light but rich, just sweet enough, and you can use any jam to make these your favorite flavor!

My sister made these breakfast buns for Christmas morning a few years back. They are like a cross between a muffin and a cupcake, with fruit preserves swirled on top. The recipe is from Magnolia Bakery, a New York City icon. They opened their first location in 1996, and now have four New York City locations, one in L.A. and even a Dubai location. They are always busy, and have been featured on Sex & the City, SNL and in The Devil Wears Prada. Magnolia actually lives up to the hype serving up delectable desserts, pastries, cupcakes, banana pudding, pies and more. They are open late too- between 10 and 12 (depending on the location) on most nights, its the perfect place to pick up dessert to eat on your subway ride home. (Last time I was in the city my friend Angela and I had finished our cupcakes and banana pudding before we even made it to the subway stop a few blocks away- oops!) They have put out quite a few cookbooks, and this recipe is from The Complete Magnolia Cookbook.

The breakfast buns aren't hard to make- it should only take about 15 minutes till you get them in the oven. If you have a stand mixer they whip right up. (Oh how I love my kitchen-aid. It makes life better) The original recipe calls for raspberry preserves to be swirled on top, but this time I used blackberry, and any flavor could be used. Since the buns are already sweet I wouldn't use a jelly that's too sweet. Tarter berry preserves seem to work really well. Also the recipe is for larger over sized buns, but I made them in a cupcake pan, so I watched them closely and cut about 5 minutes off of the bake time.

I made these for a brunch I had at my house, and I had wanted to take a picture of one of the buns out of the wrappers, (since as you can see they got a little messy when I was swirling in the preserves) but they were gobbled up too fast for me to have a chance. The batter for these was a little thick so it made swirling a  process. Also since the batter was too thick to really pour I scooped it into a large ziplock bag and cut the corner off it, then squeezed the dough into the muffin cups. Although these aren't the prettiest pictures that I've taken- trust me this recipe is worth trying!

Cream Cheese Breakfast Buns

from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

yield- 10-12 cupcake sized buns, or 9 over sized buns

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

8oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup preserves (recommended, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour bun pans or muffin cups.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking power, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a Large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and beat well.

Add the dry ingredients in two parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Spoon the batter into the bun pans or muffin cups, filling them about 2/3rds full. Drop a dollop of preserves onto the top of each bun and using the tip of a knife swirl the preserves into the batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bun comes out clean.

*optional- allow the buns to cool for about 30 minutes and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. (I have never done this since I could never wait 30 minutes to eat these! Also I think they are perfectly balanced- just sweet enough, but not too sweet and I wouldn't want to do it overdo it with the extra sugar)

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