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Orange Roll Breakfast Cake is a sweet orange cake with an orange cream cheese glaze. It tastes like an orange roll without all of the work! Perfect for your holiday breakfast.
Orange Rolls may be one of the most glorious foods on the planet but they are so time-consuming. It’s a process of letting the yeast rise, kneading the bread, rolling it out, letting it rise again, baking and then frosting the rolls – it’s an all day deal. Here is your ticket to get the flavor of orange rolls in no time at all. It’s a moist (the most cringe-worthy word in the dictionary) orange cake that’s sure to please your family.
This Orange Breakfast Cake has three layers of cake — the cake, the orange cream buttered topping, and the sweet orange cream cheese glaze. This Orange Breakfast Cake is made with butter and buttermilk to make it extra tender. The topping is made orange juice, orange zest, butter, and sugar which gives it that rich buttery and fresh orange flavor. The light cream cheese glaze brings it all together!
Christmas morning breakfast has always been a big deal in our home. Growing up we would wake up to the smells of breakfast cake baking in the oven, followed by mugs full of Grandma’s famous eggnog, studded with vanilla bean ice cream. It was the one time we could have ice cream for breakfast! After we opened our presents, we sat down to a beautiful breakfast spread and counted our blessings.
Now being a busy Mom of four, Christmas Eve is full of assembling last minute gifts (hello trampoline at 2 am) and wrapping presents, so there isn’t much time to prepare a fussy Christmas morning breakfast. This Orange Roll Breakfast Cake is quick and easy to put together and can be made ahead of time. You can serve it with some crispy bacon or farm fresh eggs and Grandma’s Famous Egg Nog and you have the perfect Christmas breakfast.
To make Grandma’s Famous Egg Nog….it’s simple. Put 1/2 gallon of Egg Nog in a large bowl. Add 1 c. Milk and stir. Using a spoon, drop in small bits of Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (we usually use 1/2 of a half gallon). The ice cream slowly melts and makes a creamy eggnog milkshake that even the “egg nog haters” seem to like. It’s the only way we drink egg nog in this home and you will be hooked in no time!
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Orange Roll Breakfast Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups Flour
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 4 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/2 cups Buttermilk
- 2 Eggs
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
- 1/2 cup Butter melted
Topping:
- 1 cup Butter softened
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons Flour
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Orange Juice
- 1 Tablespoon Orange Zest
Orange Cream Glaze:
- 4 ounces Cream Cheese softened
- 2 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1/3 cup Fresh Orange Juice
- 2 teaspoons Orange Zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla and stir. Slowly pour in melted butter and fold into batter.
- Pour into greased 9 x 13 baking pan.
- In a medium bowl, stir together butter, sugar, flour, orange juice and orange zest. Drop evenly over batter and swirl with a knife to incorporate into the batter. This is an important step as you want to swirl it into the cake from the bottom to the top.
- Bake for 30-36 minutes.
- In mixing bowl, beat cream cheese for 1 minute until creamy. Add powdered sugar, orange juice, and orange zest. Pour over warm cake. If you would like some of the glaze to seep into the cake, poke holes and let the glaze fill the cake.
- Garnish with Fresh Orange Zest (optional)
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Happy Baking!
Could I use orange juice if I don’t have fresh oranges?
Quick question…
Should you put the glaze on the cake when it is just out of the oven or should the cake cool for a little while then put the glaze on? Personal preference?
I made this for our after church coffee hour and all liked it. After reading the comments I reduced the topping butter to 3/4 cups. I think 1/2 cup (one stick) would be enough. The topping needs to be mixed into the cake VERY WELL and stir all the way to the bottom. I poked holes in the cake and poured on the glaze, but I think I would just leave it on top next time so it would be more like a frosting. I also added a little orange extract into the cake batter to give it more flavor.
I live in Arizona. So I have plenty of oranges given to me. I bake a lot and this cake came out Perfect. I halved the recipe and used an 8×8 glass pan. I actually baked it in my oversized toaster oven. Flavorful and nice and moist. It’s a keeper!👍
Can you substitute orange instead of butter milk?
Just finished a piece of this orange lusciousness warm out of the oven. I poked holes on the top and put the glaze on warm. Fantastic! Mine came out nice and flat, not lumpy at all, but I also really mixed in the orange mix as well. Love this. My mom was an orange lover as well and today would have been her 69th wedding anniversary. If she and my dad were still here, I would have made this for them and they would have loved it.
There’s a layer of oil (I assume it’s the melted butter) on the bottom of the cake. And the top is lumpy. Is the amount of butter correct for the cake?
I’ve made this and it looks very heavy with parts kind of caving in…I followed the recipe. Is the amount of butter in this correct? 3 sticks total?