Sugar for Breakfast

Breakfast 4.8.11

Holy freaking delicious Batman! I was up kind of early this morning, so I thought I would make something fun for breakfast before my husband got home from work. I was going to post a link to the recipe, but I deviated from the original instructions so much that I decided to just post what I did. Enjoy.

Glazed Cinnamon Scones

  2 c flour                              1/2 c butter (1stick)

 2 tsp baking powder              egg, separated

 1/2 tsp baking soda                       3 Tb honey

 1/2 salt                                   1/3 c buttermilk*

* I didn't have buttermilk so I just added 1/2 tsp of lemon juice 

   to the 1/3 c of milk and let it sit in a glass for about 5 minutes.

  

Crumb Topping 

            3 Tb granulated sugar          

1-3 tsp cinnamon (adjust to liking)

approx 1 Tb brown sugar (adjust to liking)

Preheat the oven to 400º. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. I found that if you slice the butter into chunks first, it makes things a whole lot easier since the butter needs to be cold and not soft.

I might slice it up even smaller than that, but I had to cut it in using a knife and a fork. If you had a pastry cutter or I guess even a food processor *coughlazycough* then the chunk size wouldn't matter as much. I was always told that whenever you cut something into flour, the pieces should end up being about the size of grains of rice. That way you know you did it right.

In a smaller bowl, separate the egg white and egg yolk. Set the egg white aside. Neither part of the egg should be in with the flour mixture yet.

Mix the honey and buttermilk together with the egg yolk. Make sure all three ingredients are blended together well. This may require the honey to be warm so it's a little smoother and thinner. Add to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Form dough into a soft ball on a floured surface. Roll or pat out to half an inch in thickness and about eight inches in diameter. Remember that the less the dough is handled, the better the scones will be. At this point I transferred the dough onto a greased baking sheet.

Cut dough into eight slices, kind of like a pizza. Make sure there is a little bit of space in between each slice, it will help keep them from sticking together when they expand in the oven.

This picture is from the original recipe. I didn't roll mine out quite as thick. 

Beat the egg white until it's nice and foamy and then brush it all over each slice. You may not end up using the entire egg white, but make sure the dough is coated nicely.

Sprinkle the *crumb topping over the top of the scones and bake at 400º for 10-12 minutes.

*I was kind of vague with the ingredients for the crumb topping because the only thing I actually measured for it was the granulated sugar. The other two ingredients can be measured to taste.

When the scones are done baking they can be topped with a glaze. Traditional glazes usually consist of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. I despise those glazes because they tend to be too runny and all you can taste is the powdered sugar. Nasty.

The glaze recipe I used was from a cookbook I already have, but it was intended for banana cream waffles so it made a LOT.

Glaze 

(Vanilla Sauce)

1/4 c butter                    1 c milk

1/2 c sugar             1 tsp vanilla

1/4 c flour                                   

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in sugar and flour. Add milk slowly and stir over medium to medium high heat until sauce thickens. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

I ended up adding about 2 or 3 Tb of powdered sugar to the sauce just to thicken it up even more. Like I said, this makes quite a bit, so maybe half the recipe or something. I ended up just saving the extra so I can make banana cream waffles sometime this weekend.

click to enlarge

Ta-da! The final product and it was oh-so-yummy and super soft. The texture reminded me a little bit of a really crumbly cake, so since this is basically like having sugar for breakfast I would recommend some scrambled eggs to go along with it, or at least a glass of milk. ☺