Petite Vanilla Bean Scones

Petite Vanilla Bean Scones

Prep Time 20 Minutes
Cook Time 20 Minutes
Servings 12

Picture and recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

Ingredients

SCONES
3 cups All-purpose Flour
⅔ cups Sugar
5 teaspoons Baking Powder
¼ teaspoons Salt
2 sticks (1/2 Pound) UNSALTED Butter, Chilled
1 whole Large Egg
¾ cups Heavy Cream (more If Needed...I used about 1/8 cup more)
2 whole Vanilla Beans

GLAZE
3 cups Powdered Sugar, Sifted
½ cups Whole Milk
1 whole Vanilla Bean
Dash Of Salt

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Split the vanilla beans down the middle lengthwise and scrape out all the vanilla “caviar” inside. Stir caviar into cream. (I added the empty bean for more flavor and just removed them before adding to the dry ingredients.) Set aside for 15 minutes.

Sift together flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Cut cold butter into pats, then use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut the butter into the flour. Keep going until mixture resembles crumbs.  Be patient.  This takes awhile.

Beat the egg in a separate bowl.  Mix vanilla cream with egg, then combine with flour mixture; stir gently with a fork just until it comes together.

Turn dough onto a floured surface and lightly press it together until it forms a rough rectangle. (Mixture will be pretty crumbly.) Use a rolling pin to roll into a rectangle about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick. Use your hands to help with the forming if necessary.

Use a knife to trim into a symmetrical rectangle, then cut the rectangle into 12 symmetrical squares/rectangles. Next, cut each square/rectangle in half diagonally, to form two triangles.

Transfer to a parchment or baking mat-lined cookie sheet and bake for 18 minutes, removing from the oven just before they start to turn golden. Allow to cool for 15 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

VANILLA GLAZE

To make the icing, split one vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the caviar. Stir caviar into milk; allow to sit for awhile. Mix powdered sugar with the vanilla milk, adding more powdered sugar or milk if necessary to get the consistency the right thickness. Stir or whisk until completely smooth.

One at a time, carefully dunk each cooled scone in the glaze, turning it over if necessary. Transfer to parchment paper or the cooling rack. Allow the glaze to set completely, about an hour. Scones will keep several days if glazed.


My Comments

Recipe can be altered for other flavors. Just add 1 cup whatever flavoring. (Blueberry lemon, oatmeal rasin, cranberry orange etc.)

Honestly I messed up when making these.  The first time I moved the dough to roll it out, it was too crumbly and totally fell apart.  No worries though.  I scooped everything back into the bowl, added a bit more cream and mixed a little more before dumping the dough back out to make my rectangle.  I was scared I'd totally messed things up, but I pushed through and they still rose just fine.

By the way, the bottle of McCormick's vanilla beans only has 2 beans in it.  I learned that the hard way.  I just used 1 1/2 for the scones, and 1/2 for the glaze.  Still very yummy vanilla!

I flash froze half with no glaze before baking and baked/glazed the other half.  I only made 1/2 the glaze recipe.

They turned out amazing! I ended up with 9 glazed scones... 3 had to be taste tested to um.. make sure they weren't poisonous. Let's just say they're good even without the glaze!