Macheesmo

Some judgy people say that it’s not appropriate to have cookies for breakfast. After all, they say, breakfast is about starting off in a way that will prepare you to tackle the day!

Exactly, I say, which is why cookies should be totally fine for breakfast.

The truth is that the line between cookie and breakfast pastry is pretty faint… nearly nonexistent actually.

But, to solve the problem once and for all, it’s pretty straightforward to turn one of my favorite cookies (snickerdoodles) into a perfectly acceptable breakfast food: scones! And like that… snickerdoodle scones were born!

Snickerdoodle Scones

by Nick

Serves:

8 scones

Prep Time:

10 mins

Total Time:

40 mins

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Homemade butter snickerdoodle scones heavily dusted with cinnamon sugar. A great flakey scone to serve with coffee or tea!

Recipe adapted lightly from a food.com recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed

1 large egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup sugar + 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Instructions

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2) In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and cream of tartar.

3) Cube butter and cut it into the dry ingredients using a pastry cutter or your clean fingers. The butter should be in pea-sized pieces when done.

4) In a small bowl, whisk together egg and sour cream. Stir wet stuff into the dry ingredients until it just comes together in a loose ball. If the mixture is very dry, add more sour cream by the tablespoon until it comes together. Try not to overwork the dough.

5) Press the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a 1/2 inch thick round. Cut scones out using a medium cookie cutter. You should get 8 scones out of the batch.

6) Press each scone in the cinnamon sugar mixture on both sides and place on the baking sheet. Dust scones with pinches of cinnamon sugar.

7) Bake scones at 350 degrees F. for 18-20 minutes until flakey and browned around the edges. Let cool briefly before serving.

Snickerdoodle Scones – The Dough

To make a good cookie, you need to make sure you cream your butter and sugar together so it’s soft and almost silky smooth. You use basically the same amounts of both things for scones, but there’s no need to cream it together. In fact, I prefer to have the sugar and butter in chunks.

To start the dough, whisk together your dry stuff including what looks like a typo amount of cinnamon.

Once that’s stirred together then cube up your cold butter and work it into the dry ingredients. I like to use a pastry cutter for this or just my clean fingers.

Work the butter into the dry stuff until it’s in pea-sized pieces. This is about right!

Now for some liquid!

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and sour cream and then stir that into the dry stuff.

This isn’t a lot of liquid and it might look like it won’t hold it all together, but it should be just enough liquid to bring the mixture into a loose ball. If you need more though, feel free to add more sour cream by the spoon until the dough comes together.

Snickerdoodling Time

When the dough comes together press it out on a lightly floured surface and then cut it into eight rounds using a cookie cutter. I like to use a medium cookie cutter, but you could also just cut the dough into squares or triangles if you want.

The real key is the thickness of the scones which should be about 1/2-3/4 inch thick.

See that blue bowl up there? That’s cinnamon sugar and it’s about 1/2 cup of sugar mixed with two teaspoons cinnamon. Pack this mix onto both sides of the scones and then transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

You can really dust the top of the scones with the mixture so it kind of bakes into the scones.

Bake these guys at 350 degrees F. for 18-20 minutes and they should end up being lightly browned around the edges and flakey on the inside. Let them cool before serving and try not to eat them all at once.

Take that no-cookie-for-breakfast snobs!