Cinnamon Roll Scones
The buttery, nearly instantly gratifying treat you didn’t know you were craving
The buttery, nearly instantly gratifying treat you didn’t know you were craving
I make really good food, but take terrible pictures of food. Trust me: they’re amazing.
Several years ago, I spent many months perfecting my cinnamon roll recipe, so I can confidently recommend it. However, as wonderful as they are, homemade cinnamon rolls take more than three hours to make. These cinnamon roll-scone-muffin hybrids are ready in a fraction of the time — a mere thirty minutes from start to delectable finish.
1 tablespoon room-temperature butter + 1 stick + 2 tablespoons butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup + 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 425 F. Melt the stick of butter in a small saucepan. Meanwhile, grease a 12-cup muffin pan with the tablespoon of room-temperature butter.
Mix the flour, 1/4 cup brown sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a mixing bowl. Add the cup of cream to the melted butter. Stir together, then pour into the dry ingredients and mix by hand until the dough is uniform and cohesive. Once the saucepan is empty, melt the last 2 tablespoons of butter.
Flour a counter or cutting board and pat the dough out onto it with floured fingers until it’s a thick rectangle about 12 x 6 inches. Mix the 3 tablespoons brown sugar and the cinnamon together in a small bowl and set aside. Carefully spread the 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the rectangle, then sprinkle the sugar-cinnamon mixture over it evenly.
Starting with a long edge, lightly roll the dough up into a log. Cut the log into 12 uniform slices and place them in the buttered muffin cups, spiral side up. (You can kind of crimp the bottom of each spiral to help keep the cinnamon-sugar mixture from falling out the bottom.) Bake for 12 minutes, until the scones are golden brown.
While the scones are baking, make the glaze. Add a tablespoon of heavy cream to the powdered sugar in a small bowl and mix. Drop by drop, add more cream. You may not need all of the second tablespoon, and you don’t want the mixture to be frosting-like at this point, or it will eventually be too thin. Only add as much cream as you need to make a thick, stiff sludge.
When the scones come out of the oven, put a dollop of sludgy glaze on each very hot scone. By the time you’ve finished dolloping the dozen, the glaze on the first scones will have started melting. Spread the glaze to cover the entire top of each scone. Let cool for about ten minutes.
Run a butter knife around the perimeter of each scone, then carefully lever out and serve with a fork and a glass of cold milk. Serves 6 hungry people or 12 polite people.