Thursday, May 15, 2014

Cheesy Breakfast Sausage Bundt #BundtBakers

Step outside the sweet box and bake a Bundt with cheddar, cream cheese, sausage and green onions. Great for breakfast buffets and luncheons, slices of this cheesy sausage Bundt are just as fabulous toasted the next day.  

When fellow Bundt Baker, Anne from My Sweet Heart,  first proposed a breakfast Bundt theme for this month, I knew I wanted to make something savory, something with breakfast sausage. I can’t actually buy ready-to-cook breakfast sausage here in Dubai, so I replicate it with Penzey’s Breakfast Sausage Seasonings mixed into ground pork. Breakfast sausage is one of my guilty pleasures. Especially the spicy ones that say “hot” on the label. Whenever I arrive back in the States, one of the first items on the “to-do” list is a trip to the grocery store to stock up on essentials like bread, milk, eggs and fresh vegetables but at least two packages of hot breakfast sausage always make it into the cart. I know it’s not the healthiest of food items, but it’s a rare treat. So is this wonderful savory Bundt.

Many thanks to our Bundt Baker host, Kelly at Passion Kneaded for generously filling in for Anne and hosting this month’s creative theme.

My cheesy breakfast Bundt is adapted from a recipe called Wylma's Breakfast Bread. I don’t know Wylma but I think I’d like her a lot.

Ingredients
For the Bundt:
1 lb or 455g spicy breakfast sausage meat or ground pork with 1 tablespoon breakfast sausage seasonings
4 cups or 500g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup or 120g butter unsalted butter, chilled
12 oz or 340g cream cheese, chilled
8 oz or 225g shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
Bunch green onion tops (Mine weighed about 1 3/4oz or 50g.)
8 eggs
3 cups or 710ml milk

For the glaze:
3 oz or 85g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk plus 3-4 teaspoons more till desired consistency is reached
1 teaspoon hot sauce (I used Louisiana Habanero Hot Sauce. If you like spicy, this one’s wonderful. And, no, I didn’t get any free from the company. My sister is my supplier.)

Optional garnish: Green onion tops or chives

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease and flour a 10-15 cup Bundt pan.

Brown your sausage meat in a skillet over a medium heat, cutting it up and crumbling it with the spatula as you go. Once it’s golden brown, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and put it on some paper towels to absorb the grease.



Chop your green onion tops finely and set aside.



In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.



Cut your cold butter into cubes and toss them in the dry ingredients.


Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until you have a coarse mixture that looks a little like damp sand.



Cut your cream cheese into cubes as well and toss them into the dry ingredients.

Use a pastry blender to cut the cream cheese into the dry ingredients. It won’t completely disappear like the butter did but that’s fine. You want some small pieces of cream cheese still visible.



Now add in your drained sausage, the grated cheddar cheese and the green onions and stir well.


In another bowl, beat together the eggs and the milk.



Fold the egg mixture into the dry mixture until just combined.


Pour into your prepared pan.


Bake in your preheated oven for 65-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean.



Cool for about 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool further.



Meanwhile, you can be making the cream cheese glaze. Mix together the cream cheese with the hot sauce and one tablespoon of the milk.



Stir vigorously until completely combined. Add more milk, teaspoon by teaspoon and whisk to get all the tiny lumps out, until you have a glaze of pouring consistency.

I kept testing mine by lifting the spatula or whisk out and seeing if the glaze would drip off slowly. I ended up adding four teaspoons myself but our cream cheese is very rich and stiff to start with. You will have to use your judgment here.

For the green onion garnish, I sliced a couple of green onion tops lengthwise with a Japanese tool called a negi cutter. (Negi being green onion.) It’s a handy multi-blade knife that makes cutting even strips very easy.

Then I cut the stripes into shorter lengths and popped them into a bowl with iced water so they’d curl up.

This takes about 15 or 20 minutes, then I drained the green onion curls on paper towels. Just chop your green onions into little circles if you don’t have a negi cutter.

Pour on the cream cheese glaze when you are ready to serve and sprinkle on your green onions.




Enjoy!



Are you looking for breakfast Bundt inspiration for your next brunch, wedding or baby shower? Bundt Bakers has got you covered!



BundtBakers


#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme.  Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send me an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

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