Add a festive Candy Cane Crescent Roll Breakfast Pastry with a cream cheese and cherry filling to your Christmas brunch. It is sure to impress with minimal effort for a breezy Christmas treat. Beware, little hands are guaranteed to snatch it up for a taste of that yummy glaze drizzled over the top.
Candy canes have been on my mind the last few days with the arrival of December. How the heck did that happen? Anyway, it doesn’t get more festive than a candy cane inspired treat!
I’ve been wanting to experiment with a crescent roll pastry and thought it would make the perfect looking candy cane with a cherry topping peeking through. I couldn’t do just cherries, so I added some cream cheese filling for one of my favorite pastry flavor combinations.
Feel free to use strawberries as well if you aren’t a cherry fan! I’m in love with the flaky outer layer smothered in glaze…hello lovely!
The most difficult party of this recipe is getting the candy cane shape right. I did have to move things around a couple of times to get the curve that I wanted. After that, it was super easy adding the cheese and cherry filling, and folding over the triangle ends over for a lovely striped effect.
I ended up adding 2 extra triangle ends to the top of the candy cane to make the stripes more symmetrical. It did take every last inch up of my cookie sheet as you can see.
My 5 year old daughter has turned into quite the little photography assistant. She loves doing hand modeling and holding reflector boards (minimal hand shake involved). However, her favorite part is biting into the finished product. She told me her favorite part was the white icing (more sugar please for optimal hyperactivity).
Okay, I literally just caught her licking the icing off of another piece of this Candy Cane Breakfast Pastry. Hold on now…time to drop them off at Grandma’s house!
If you liked this Candy Cane Crescent Roll Breakfast Pastry, check out some of my other holiday favorites.
No Christmas brunch would be complete without a Cranberry Orange Mimosa Float and my favorite Broccoli Cheddar Strata with Blender Hollandaise sauce…SO good! Once brunch is officially consumed, have a Crockpot full of Cranberry Mulled Wine on stand by to keep things interesting.
Be sure to visit my Cocktail Page for more great ideas.
HOLIDAY FAVORITES
- Chocolate Cherry Cookies
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
- Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake
- Easy Fruit Pizza
- Caramel Creme Brulee White Russian
- Pineapple Orange Creamsicle Mimosas
- Gingerbread Martini
- Christmas Sangria
- Baileys Peppermint Hot Chocolate
- Snowflake Martini
- 20 Holiday Cocktails
- Salted Caramel Chocolate Martini

- 2 packages of refrigerated crescent rolls
- 1 8 oz. Cream Cheese; softened
- 1 egg
- 1/3 C. Sugar
- 1 Can Cherry Pie Filling
- Glaze:
- 1/2 C. Powdered Sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. Milk
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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On a cookie sheet, arrange crescent roll triangles pointing inward into the shape of a candy cane with edges overlapping (see photos above). Lightly press triangles together to seal. I used exactly 1 1/2 packages of crescent rolls to make the candy cane shape.
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In a mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese and sugar, add egg; beat until smooth.
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Using a teaspoon, spoon cream cheese filling onto the larger part of each triangle; leaving around 1/2 on inch from the edges. You will have extra cheese left.
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Add teaspoons of cherry filling over the top of the cream cheese.
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Fold tops of triangles towards the base end of each triangle and press lightly to seal. Using the extra croissant roll dough, cut the triangle ends off of 2 rolls to fill in extra spaces at the top of the candy cane as necessary.
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Bake for around 15 minutes or until top of pastry is golden brown.
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Allow to cool slightly before adding glaze.
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Prepare Glaze:
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Beat together powdered sugar and milk until smooth. May add an additional 1/2 Tbsp. of milk if too thick.
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Using a teaspoon, drizzle glaze over crescent tops of candy cane.
ingredients mention milk where does that go? Also how do I make glaze?
Sorry, the milk is used to prepare the glaze. I updated the recipe with the instructions to prepare it. Thanks
To make the glaze. Mix it with powdered sugar.
Can you use any other floavoring for the candy cane? Such as raspberry preserves?
Hey Cheryl! You could use jam, but I think a pie filling would taste better in this case.
Very good
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Just made this for the kiddos and they loved it! Thanks for the great recipe.
Thanks so much…so glad to hear that! My kids love it too.
Do you think this could work with puff pastry instead of crescent roll??
Hi Katie! I’ve never tried it with puff pastry, but I think it could work. I like how the crescent rolls are pre-cut and ready to use.
Can you assemble it the night before,
and then just pop it in the oven in the morning?
Hi Liz! I think it would be okay to assemble it the night before. Sounds like a great idea for Christmas morning! I might try doing that tomorrow night when I put together my Apple French Toast.
Loved it, but couldn’t see the glaze like on yours so I added glaze to the left over cream cheese & drizzled on top.
Thanks Marla, what a great idea!
I made this for my family on Christmas morning and it was a huge hit! I used strawberry preserves and chopped strawberries just because that’s my family’s preference. Compliments all around, and they asked me to make it again for Christmas brunch next year!
I used strawberry pie filling instead of raspberries. It was out of this world! I heard only wonderful comments about how good it was! There wasn’t a crumb left! The recipe was so easy!
That’s great…I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it! I’ll have to try it with strawberries as well.
Thank you so much, Holly. Your recipe was delicious. I tried it yesterday, and it came out well. My husband appreciated me, I felt like flying in the sky. It’s all because of you. Thank you, Holly.
Thanks…I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
This looks so good! What a quick and yummy dish for a Christmas breakfast!
Thanks Suzanne! My kids love waking up to this Christmas morning.
Would it be ok to make the night before?
Hey Lauren, it is okay to make this the night before.
This was wonderful! My boys helped me make it and next year we will be making 2 because with 4 boys, one want enough! We all loved it!
Thanks for sharing! I’m so glad it was a hit.
Any suggestions on how to move from cookie sheet without breaking??
Thanks!
You could try baking on parchment paper to slide it off more easily.
I’ve made this since late 70’s…always big hit and beautiful presentation. Gets eaten up in no time! It’s great for a Christmas brunch!
Thanks! I agree completely…so festive and delicious!
I made these for a family Christmas party and everyone loved them.
Delicious! I want to make another one for a work brunch! How long ahead of time could I make this? And how do I store it?
So glad you loved it! I think it would be best to bake the candy cane and cover/refrigerate the day before once it has cooled completely. A jelly roll pan with a lid like the one below would work best for storage. Otherwise, you could leave it on the pan and place toothpicks and plastic wrap over it.
https://www.amazon.com/USA-Pan-1040JRLD-ST-1-Bakeware-Nonstick/dp/B07F3TYF3W/ref=psdc_289674_t4_B07F3JGS21
And after you make it the night before, how do you suggest the re-heating process the next day?
If you want it to be warm, I would wait to bake it until the day of. You can make the candy cane shape, add the fruit filling and refrigerate over night. I don’t think it will re-heat well once already baked.
Our Christmas crowd is smaller this year (travel plans cancelled due to Covid issues). Do you think this would look OK and have the same affect if I cut this recipe in half and only used one thing of crescent rolls?
I think that would work. You might need to trim a bit off the crescent roll dough to reduce thickness for a smaller candy cane.