Shamrock Breakfast Treats: Rainbows Blog With Friends

Today’s post is the next in our series of Blog With Friends theme collaborations. Each month a group  of bloggers get together and each publish a project based on a theme. What I love about this partnership is that it’s not bloggers with similar interests or strengths but a diverse group coming up with a variety of posts. In any given month we may have a recipe, sewing tutorial, crafts projects, book review and/or a technology post all related to the theme of the month.

This month's theme is Rainbows.

There will be individual project pictures and links to what everyone else has to offer at the end of my post, but here’s a peek at what we all came up with:

I made Shamrock Breakfast Treats.

Shamrock Breakfast Treats

I actually had a bit of a hard time with this post. First, I had already published four years ago, my Lucky Rainbow Cookies. 

I even wrote a funny story in that post about a Leprechaun who found my cookies and used them for . . . well . . . pants.

So a cookie was out for this project. Plan B, I'll do a cake. Nope. Tamara had already signed up for a Rainbow Cake. 

Good thing there are a lot of letters in the alphabet, I may need them for this project. OK, Plan C. Thinking it through again, focusing on the fact that St. Patrick's Day is just a few days away, I decided to go with the shamrock. 

Turns out it's good I'm not making a cake after all, as, a year after the Rainbow Cookies post, I continued the story of Lucky Leprechaun and included the recipe for a Creme de Menthe Shamrock Cake. BTW, I realized when looking at shamrock pictures for this project that shamrocks actually only have three leaves. I'd made a Creme de Menthe Four Leaf Clover Cake, not shamrock cake. Oops, my bad.

In order to keep with the theme here, I need to be able to incorporate rainbows. Desserts (and pants) pretty much covered, I decided to go in a completely different direction, breakfast. I'd make Shamrock shaped cinnamon roll treats and I'd use colored sugar to make them the colors of the rainbow.

This is a really simple recipe, using packaged cinnamon rolls both for quick baking since they're a breakfast, and for the ease of starting with a "cheat".

I rolled out the dough between waxed paper to between 1/4 inch and 1/3 inch thickness and cut out small hearts to use to make the shamrock leaves.

 
On parchment paper already placed on the baking sheet, I formed the dough shamrocks using the hearts and then rolling scraps for the stem.

I brushed with butter, added colored sugar and a small candy pearl to the center of each shamrock. I used five different colors and made one multicolored.

They puff and rise when they bake. I let them cool for a few minutes, then thinned the icing provided and drizzled over the cooked treats. If you use a long spatula and remove from the baking sheet carefully, they will stay together. If not, just reshape on the plate. Enjoy!

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Wishing you luck that's more of the "end of the rainbow" type (which I'm actively aspiring to, myself) and less of the "Murphy's Law" type (which is, sadly, my current streak).

As always, any time you make one of my recipes, feel free to post a picture of it to my Baking In A Tornado Facebook Page. I'd love to see it!

Be sure to visit all of this month's other Blog With Friends projects:

Tamara of Part-Time Working Hockey Mom shares how to make a Rainbow Sheet Cake. 

Jules of The Bergham Chronicles shares Rainbow Colored Glasses, affordable rainbow items that can be bought to add color to your life. 

Dawn of Spatulas on Parade shared Rainbow Muffins and Sprinkled Treats. 

Melissa of Heartfelt Sentiments shares how to Color Your World with handmade cards.

Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares how to find the beauty in the midst of chaos, Finding the Gold.

Be sure to stop by again next month for more theme based projects.

Shamrock Breakfast Treats

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Printable Recipe

NOTE: I use a small heart shaped cookie cutter to form a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day but you can make them any shape and incorporate any colors for other occasions.

Ingredients:

1 tube refrigerated cinnamon rolls
2 TBSP butter, melted
1/2 tsp each of 6 different colored sugars (can use multicolored also)
6 candy pearls or mini M&Ms

1 TBSP milk

Directions:
*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Set aside the icing packet that comes with the rolls.
*Roll all of the dough into a ball. About 1/4 of the dough at a time, roll between 2 sheets of wax paper to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thickness.
*Using a small heart shaped cookie cutter, cut hearts out of the dough until you have 18 hearts.
*On the parchment paper, use the hearts in threes to form shamrocks, attaching at the points. Repeat until you have 6 shamrocks. 
*Roll the remaining scraps into a thin log. Cut 6 pieces and curl below shamrock, attaching at the tip of the hearts to form a stem.
*Using a pastry brush brush all of the shamrocks with melted butter. Sprinkle each with a different color of baking sugar. Place a candy pearl or mini M&M into each where the stem meets the hearts.
*Bake for about 12 minutes or until they puff and barely start to brown. Allow to sit on the baking sheet for 2 minutes.
*Place the icing into a bowl. Whisk in a TBSP milk to thin it a bit. Drizzle over the shamrocks. Allow to sit for about 5 minutes. 
*Remove from the baking sheet with a large flat spatula and they should stay together. If not, reassemble on plates.