Cherry Breakfast Braid

5 from 3 votes

Cherry Breakfast Braid is a delicious breakfast, brunch, or dessert pastry. It's sweet, creamy, and a bit and tastes better than anything bought at a bakery!

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Breakfast, Brunch

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 312kcal

Author: Jennifer Fishkind

Ingredients

8 oz package refrigerated crescent roll sheet (I used Pillsbury brand)
¾ cup canned cherry pie filling (I used Duncan Hines-Comstock brand)
4 ounce cream cheese softened
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
1 egg yolk
1 zest of small lemon
1½ cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp lemon juice from the zested lemon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375* F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, using a handheld mixer on medium-low speed, beat together the softened cream cheese, granulated sugar, egg yolk, vanilla extract, salt and lemon zest until smooth.
Unroll the crescent roll sheet onto the prepared baking sheet and gently flatten it to a rough 8x14 inch rectangle.
Using a pizza cutter, or sharp knife, cut 10 (1 ½ inch) strips, at a diagonal, on each side. You want to leave the center solid (about 3-4 inches wide) because that is where you will place your filling.
Evenly spread your cream cheese mixture onto the center of your cut crescent roll sheet, being careful to not get it on the cut strips.
Spoon your cherry pie filling onto the top of the cream cheese filling.
Fold the ends of the crescent dough up, and over the top of the cream cheese and cherries. This helps the filling to stay nice and neat inside the ends of the Cherry breakfast braid when baked.
Starting at one end, fold one strip across to the other side of the filling. Then take one strip from the opposite side and cross it over the top of the strip you just placed. Repeat until you have made a criss-cross (braid) pattern on the top of your crescent and fillings. **You want to make sure that you go all the way across to the other side when placing your strips. This ensures that your filling does not seep out the sides when baked**
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.
In a medium bowl combine the powdered sugar, heavy cream and lemon juice. Whisk until smooth. If your glaze is too thick you can add a small amount of additional lemon juice to thin it. Be careful to not add too much liquid.
Allow your baked cherry breakfast braid to cool on the counter for 30 minutes before adding the glaze and serving.

Notes

Storage :

To Store: Store any leftovers in a covered container, in the refrigerator, for up to 3 days.
To Reheat: Reheat in the oven for best results or in the microwave in 1 minute intervals.

Tips:

If you do not want to use the cherry pie filling, any fruit pie filling would be delicious instead. You could even double the amount of cream cheese filling and omit the fruit all together. This is a very versatile recipe.
I used a refrigerated crescent roll sheet for this, but if you can not find them in your local grocery store you can use an 8 oz. container of regular crescent rolls. You will not separate them, but will push the seams together gently and unroll into a single rectangle. A sheet of thawed puff pastry would be another good alternative.
If you are serving a crowd you can very easily double this recipe. If you get 1 (21oz.can) of the canned pie filling you can split the contents in half between the 2 breakfast braids and it will yield approximately 3/4cup for each breakfast braid.

Nutrition