Cinnamon-Chip Scones

Fall is my favorite season and with Halloween, cool days, crisp leaves, and my birthday in it, October is pretty much my favorite month.  It is always so busy for me and this year has been no exception.  I have been doing tons of baking, projects, and socializing, but have fallen way behind on my recording of stuff.  So now that it is November--and before the craziness of the winter holidays hits--I'm going to try to catch up some.

Part one of catching up is a recipe for some amazing scones.  I wanted to make scones for breakfast at work a while ago and stumbled across a link from Southern Living for Best Ever Scones.  What I really liked was that a basic recipe could be changed dramatically to get different results and that sweet and savory were both possibilities.  Of course, none of the options were exactly what I wanted, so I changed mine kind of a lot. Here's my version of the sweet: Cinnamon-chip scones with Brown-sugar-cinnamon butter

Scone Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1/3 cup sugar (plus a smidge more to sprinkle on top of scones)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or however much you like, I just kinda eyeballed it, to be honest)
• 1/2 cup cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes  (unsalted)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)
• 1 cup 2% milk, divided (the original recipe called for heavy/whipping cream, but 2% worked great and I felt better about it)  
• 1/2 cup cinnamon chips

Scone Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450°. 
2. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. 
3. Cut butter into flour mixture with a pastry blender/a fork until crumbly and mixture resembles small peas. 
4. Freeze 5 minutes. 
5. Add 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. milk, vanilla, and cinnamon chips, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.
6. Turn dough out onto wax paper; gently press or pat dough into a 7-inch round.
7. Use a sharp knife to cut dough into 8 wedges. 
8. Place wedges 2 inches apart on parchment paper.  
• Note: the original recipe said to bake these scones on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  I made the recipe once with parchment and the scones baked perfectly.  Then I made them again on a greased cookie sheet and the bottoms were overdone to the point of being nearly burned.  It could have been the unfamiliar oven the second time, but I blame the lack of parchment.   
9. Brush or pat tops of wedges with remaining milk, just until moistened.  
10. Sprinkle a bit of sugar on top, if you like the look/flavor.  
11. Bake at 450° for 13 to 15 minutes or until golden.
• Note: the original recipe also listed an option for Bite-Size Scones, but I haven't tried it yet.  They said: Pat dough into 2 (4-inch) rounds. Cut rounds into 8 wedges. Bake as directed for 12 to 13 minutes.

Brown-Sugar Cinnamon Butter:
I totally forgot to bookmark where I saw the suggestion/recipe for the fancy butter.  But here is basically what I did.  Oh, and every recipe I see only for something similar calls for a whole stick of butter.  That is way too much for just a batch of scones, so I made half a stick's worth!

Soften 1/2 stick of butter.  Thoroughly mix in 2 packed Tbsp brown sugar and 2 to 3 tsp cinnamon.  Refrigerate.