A sweet Christmas Bread recipe brings holiday magic to your kitchen, combining a buttery crumb with colorful funfetti sprinkles and a sweet glaze. This loaf is perfect for seasonal gatherings and an ideal holiday gift. It’s a festive treat that everyone will love!
An Easy and Festive Sweet Bread for Christmas
If you don’t already have a Christmas bread making tradition, I suggest you give this tasty quick bread a try this year!
Different types of bread are made in different cultures for Christmastime. Yeasted bread with dried fruit or Stollen is common in the Netherlands and Germany, Pannetone is enjoyed in Italy, and of course, there are gingerbread and fruit cake!
This bread is easier to make than most of those traditional recipes, and can probably be made with things you already have on hand. My Christmas Bread recipe is flavored with butter, brown sugar, and almond extract and filled with festive Christmas Sprinkles.
It reminds me of my Christmas Funfetti Cake, but again, making a loaf of bread is way easier than baking a layer cake!
Happy Holidays!
Ingredient Notes
Here’s what you need to make this festive treat!
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
- Flour: Regular all-purpose flour is perfect here. Measure the flour by the scoop and level method, or by weight.
- Baking Powder and Baking Soda: Most quick bread recipes use both of these leaveners. This combination gives the bread the best texture and helps it to rise as it bakes.
- Butter: Use unsalted butter for Christmas bread. Because we’re using melted butter, you won’t even need to pull out your mixer for this recipe.
- Eggs: Did you know that it’s best to use room-temperature eggs when baking? I usually leave them on the counter for about an hour so that they aren’t cold.
- Sugar: I like to use both granulated sugar and brown sugar for amazing flavor and a moist crumb.
- Sour Cream and Milk: Together, these add the perfect amount of moisture to the batter and help to make a tender, soft bread. Plain Greek yogurt will also work in place of the sour cream.
- Flavorings: A warm nutty blend of pure vanilla extract and almond extract brings the right amount of festive flair.
- Christmas Sprinkles! It is important to use long sprinkles, also called jimmies, rather than the small, round nonpariels. The color in jimmies are less likely to “bleed” and run.
Recipe Tips
- Add Other Flavorings. As written, this recipe makes a sweet and delicious buttery loaf, and the vanilla and almond extracts are perfectly festive, but there is room for you to add your own spin. Try adding a bit of cinnamon, or swap the almond extract for orange, anise, or any other baking extract you enjoy.
- Mix Ins. Aside from the sprinkles, you can add chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, chopped nuts, or chopped dried or candied fruits. Red and green candied cherries would be festive and delicious, as would dried cranberries.
- Prepare your loaf pan. Adding parchment paper to your loaf pan will make it super simple to remove the bread from the pan once it’s baked. A couple of metal binder clips can help to keep the extra paper out of the way.
Christmas Bread Storing Tips
To keep your quick bread fresh, store it in an airtight container and keep it at room temperature for up to 3 days.
For longer storage, you can keep the bread wrapped in the refrigerator for up to a week.
For even longer storage, wrap the bread tightly with plastic wrap, place it in a freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to enjoy, remove from the freezer and thaw at room temperature.
For best results when freezing, store the loaf without the glaze. Make a fresh batch of glaze and add it to the bread with the sprinkles before serving.
More Festive Holiday Treats!
All Christmas Desserts →
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Christmas Bread
Ingredients
Christmas Bread:
- 2 ½ cups (300 g) all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter melted
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar packed
- 2 large large eggs room temperature
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup (120 ml) milk room temperature
- ¼ cup (63 g) sour cream room temperature
- ½ cup red and green jimmies sprinkles divided
Glaze:
- 1 ½ cups (180 g) powdered sugar
- 1-2 Tablespoons milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- red and green sprinkles optional garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C), or 160°C for a fan oven. Grease and lightly flour a 8.5 x 4.5-inch loaf pan.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together melted butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and almond extract until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between eggs.
- Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk and sour cream to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Do not overmix.
- Gently fold in the red and green sprinkles.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
- Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- In a small bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, milk, and salt to make the glaze.
- Drizzle the glaze over the cooled bread, allowing it to run down the sides. Decorate with additional sprinkles if desired.
Notes:
- Be sure to use long, “jimmies” style sprinkles rather than non-pariels. Fold the sprinkles in gently to avoid bleeding colors.
- Add mix-ins like white chocolate chips, cranberries, or nuts to the batter along with the sprinkles.
- Cool the loaf completely on a wire rack before frosting it. If the loaf is still warm, the glaze will melt and soak in.
- Get the perfect consistency for your icing by adjusting the amount of milk that you add. Start with just one tablespoon, and add a little bit more until you have an icing that is thick enough to stay on the bread without running over the sides. If you make the icing too thin, whisk in more powdered sugar to fix it.
- Bake this in mini loaf pans to create smaller loaves that will be perfect holiday gifts! Reduce the baking time to 20-30 minutes.
Nutrition Information
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
© Little Sunny Kitchen
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