A couple years ago, I had a cooking blog called Stirring in Stilettos. I let it go because I honestly had too much on my plate and my photography was more important and deserved more of my attention and focus. But food is still an important aspect of my life, as well as a hobby my husband and I share. This is an excerpt from my Stirring in Stilettos blog and one of my favorite recipes. A blissful morning for me would be to eat a couple of these scones with a cup of coffee in peace and quiet before my kids get up….ah!

Three days last week, instead of making my typical cereal for breakfast, I drove through the drive-through at my local Starbucks on my way to work. Why? Well, I can tell you it was not for the coffee! Ha! No, it was for three petite vanilla scones. They are so good! I love them! And so, I was inspired to make my own vanilla bean scones this past weekend. I modified my recipe from, Old-Fashioned Cream Scones out of the Sunset Cookbook of Breads.

Oh my goodness, they were amazing! Seriously, it was so hard not to just eat the whole batch all by myself! The first thing for anything vanilla bean is to make sure you have a vanilla bean. Common sense, right? In my opinion, vanilla extract simply does not substitute. Well, I guess you could substitute vanilla extract but you won’t have those fantastic vanilla specs and your scones won’t be vanilla bean scones they would just be vanilla. But that is just a personal pet peeve of mine. If we go to a restaurant and I order a vanilla bean creme brulee (another favorite of mine) and there are no “bean specs” in it I am very disappointed (and slightly enraged. Just kidding). I also only buy Hagen Das Vanilla Bean ice cream … never just vanilla. Why? For the specs of course!

The first thing I did was preheat my oven. I absolutely hate it when you are following a recipe and the recipe says to preheat your oven at the very end … um by the time I get to the end of the recipe I am ready to pop whatever it is into the oven. But, no, now I have to sit around while my oven heats up. Grrr….So I am just going to start off by telling you, we’re going to need a hot oven so let’s turn it on now.

The other thing we are going to have to do is “cut” in our butter and to do this we will want our butter to be cold and cut into small cubes. So cut your butter up into small pieces and throw it in the freezer for the time being. The food processor is one of the best appliances to “cut” in fat. I use it all the time for this purpose because you can pulse slowly which breaks the butter into small pieces but does not get hot enough to melt the butter. You basically want small pockets of butter for extra flakiness throughout your dough. So if you have a food processor get that out.

Let’s get started … Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in the food processor and pulse a few times lightly. In my scones, I used half all-purpose flour and half cake flour. The cake flour has less gluten so it tends to be much lighter and more crumbly. I personally don’t like dense scones. But you can use whatever flour you have on hand it will just slightly change the texture of the scone. Oh, and 9 times out of 10 when I make these I sift my flour. Not a requirement however.

Now, go grab your butter from the freezer and slowly add it a few small cubes at a time pulsing between each handful. If you do not have a food processor, go get one. Just kidding. You can do this part by hand and rub the butter into the flour between your fingers or with a pastry cutter. Once the butter is cut in, the mixture should look like crumbs. Just be careful if you are using your fingers that the butter does not melt so work fast and remember we want chunks of butter so don’t play with it too much. (Your hands are warm)

Crack the eggs into a separate bowl and remove one tablespoon of the egg white and set aside. Stir in the remaining eggs and the cream. I recommend using a wooden spoon for this and not the stand mixer because I don’t want to develop too much gluten. Gluten is developed through mixing, kneading pulling, etc … and makes your dough “chewy”. If you are using a mixer, mix on low. This will bring the dough together. Now comes the fun part. Take your vanilla bean and use the tip of your pairing knife or a small sharp knife to carefully split it in half. Then take one of your halves and use the back of the knife to scrape down the bean. Add the scraped vanilla bean to the dough. Combine carefully. You want an even coverage of vanilla specs throughout. But don’t throw away the spent vanilla husks … you can use them to make your own vanilla extract. Guess I’ll have to write another post about that later (its pretty much just alcohol, like vodka or bourbon, and vanilla bean husks).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead just enough to the point where the dough is pliable enough to roll out. To knead the dough, fold it in half and push down, rotate, and then repeat a couple of times. Once complete, divide the dough into four equal parts. The scones I made were miniature, for larger scones, just divide your dough into two parts instead of four. Roll each part into a ball then push down with the palm of your hand to form a flat round approximately an inch thick. Now take each disk of dough and cut it into quarters using a pastry scraper of a dull knife into even wedges.

Arrange each wedge onto an ungreased baking sheet approximately one inch apart. Brush the top of each scone with the egg white you set aside earlier. This will help the scone get a beautiful golden brown color. Bake the scones for 12-13 minutes or until they are just browned. If you made larger scones, are baking time may be longer.

While the scones are baking, its time to make the icing. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine cream, powdered sugar and the other half of the vanilla bean. Use the same technique to scrape the beans out and add to the mixture. Mix on low until the frosting comes together and the vanilla bean seeds are evenly dispersed. You’ll know when its done cause you’ll want to taste it! If you do not have a stand mixer, you can also use a whisk.

Once scones are done, let them cool. Pour the frosting into small bowl that it at least a couple inches deep. Then dunk each one into the icing to cover 2/3 of the scone. It is important here that you allow the scones to cool before doing the frosting application or heat from the scone will melt the frosting and you will have a crumbly mess.

[yumprint-recipe id=’1′] Okay, so I hope you love these as much as I do. If you try this recipe, let me know your thoughts or any modifications you made in the comments section below. Oh! And pictures. Post pictures of your scrumptious drool-worthy creations.

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