Cinnamon-Filled Scones

I had another post all lined up to go today but then I made these scones this morning and decided I’d rather share them instead!  They first came on my radar when Jen of My Kitchen Addiction posted them a few weeks ago.  I’m not usually a big scone person (ok, with the exception of these scones, which are amazing!!), but the idea of a scone stuffed with a cinnamon-sugar-butter mixture sounded too good to resist!  The recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grains Baking cookbook and while Jen made some interesting substitutions to the recipe (you can see her version here), I made it almost exactly as written since I had the ingredients on hand.

The recipe uses three types of flour – all-purpose, whole wheat and oat.  I’ve had good results using white whole wheat flour in my baking so I went with that.  For the oat flour, I pulsed old-fashioned oats in my food processor and then weighed them to get the correct amount.  I needed about 1 1/2 cups of old-fashioned oats to yield the 3 1/4 ounces of oat flour the recipe called for.  If you want a bit of extra cinnamon flavor, you could add cinnamon chips to the dough – just throw them in when you add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. 

To say this dough was sticky would be a major understatement.  I won’t lie – it was tricky to work with and I used a lot of flour so I could handle it.  It was easier for me to put the dough into the cake pan and then pat it to form a 9-inch circle as opposed to forming the circle on a work surface and then transferring it to the pan.  The recipe calls for cutting the scones before you bake them, which I thought was interesting and I struggled a bit here too due to the stickiness of the dough.  It was fine though – when the scones came out of the oven the lines I’d cut were still visible and I just used the knife to re-cut them before flipping them out of the pan.  Speaking of taking the scones out of the oven, mine were done in about 35 minutes, which is less than the suggested baking time, so you may want to start checking yours a few minutes early.

The house smelled absolutely amazing as these baked and I couldn’t wait to dig into one!  Fortunately, they did not disappoint!  I had one warm and it was delicious.  The brown sugar/cinnamon filling was definitely the best part and added a lot of flavor.  My scones were moist and tender, which wasn’t surprising given the texture of the dough.  I’ll definitely make them again, and as Jen mentioned, this recipe would be a great base for playing around with other flavor combinations.  I shared these with Shane’s dad and his coworkers, which was probably a good thing or I might have eaten them for lunch! 

Cinnamon-Filled Scones
from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

Filling
2/3 cup (4 3/4 oz) sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, softened

Dough
1 cup (3 1/4 oz) oat flour
1 cup (4 oz) white whole wheat flour
1 cup (4 1/4 oz) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (2 3/8 oz) sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 oz) cold unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 cup evaporated milk (or half-and-half)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping
milk for brushing
sparkling or turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375 F.  Spray a 9-inch cake pan with cooking spray or line the bottom with parchment paper.

To make the filling: Stir the sugar, flour and cinnamon together in a small bowl.  Add the butter and combine to form a spreadable paste.

To make the dough: Whisk the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.  Using a pastry cutter (or your fingers), cut the butter into the mixture until it resembles coarse sand, with some pea-sized chunks of butter.  In a measuring cup, combine the milk, egg and vanilla.  Add to the dry ingredients and use a fork to stir just until the dough comes together. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.  Divide it in half, knead each half and then gently form each into a 9-inch circle.  Put one of the circles in the prepared cake pan then spread the cinnamon filling on top.  Place the second circle of dough on top of the filling and press down lightly to remove any air bubbles.

With a floured knife cut the scones into 12 wedges.  Brush the tops with milk (I used some of the extra evaporated milk) and sprinkle with turbinado or sparkling sugar. 

Bake until golden brown and firm to the touch in the center, about 40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Run a knife around the outside edge of the pan then invert the scones onto a cooling rack and invert again onto a plate so the scones are right side up.