Cinnamon (and other) Scones from King Arthur Flour

One thing I love about this time of year is that I can shamelessly load my cart with tons of butter and blame it all on the baking.  I mean, really, you can't expect to be able to bake anything unless you have several pounds of (preferably Land O'Lakes) butter in your fridge and freezer, can you?  I certainly can't. 

Once you've stockpiled your butter, it's time to get serious about baking and planning for baking.  Last week, while innocently searching the web for a cinnamon scone recipe, I found the promised land (insert angelic voices singing here)  the KING ARTHUR FLOUR WEBSITE and lost myself for hours in their recipes, their blog and then their shop where they have all kinds of amazing things I never knew I even needed for baking.  Gourmet ingredients meets cool baking tools and acccessories and they even have gluten free stuff that will make baking for my mom (who has celiac) a lot simpler.

After drooling onto my laptop for several hours, I finally got down to the business of making these beauties, Triple Cinnamon Scones:

I didn't have all the ingredients that they suggest in the recipe, so I used a few substitutions-making mine only double cinnamon scones because I didn't have the cinnamon filling.  I also took the "traditional" route and sprinkled the scones with cinnamon sugar before baking rather than using the glaze they suggest. 

The recipe was very easy to pull together-basically some flour, sugar, baking soda (these are scones after all) and then some 1/2 and 1/2 (how could this go wrong? I ask you!) and eggs along with the cinnamon chips.  In case you haven't seen the cinnamon chips-I used these from Hershey:

So, it's just mix the dry ingredients, cut in 1 stick of butter and then add the wet-forming it into a log of dough and then cutting it however you want.  The recipe suggested these rectangular shapes and I really liked them. 

After a little freezing (30 minutes) and then a little baking (17 minutes seemed to do the trick) you have these amazing scones:

After these came out so, so, so good, I thought it might be time to change things up a bit.  If cinnamon scones are good, why not try something a little more chocolatey?  And, if chocolate is good, isn't coffee even better?  Why, yes, I think so!!  Here's where it got interesting:

I took the basic recipe, which results in a moist scone-pretty amazing in itself.  Then, I added some Starbucks, because really-why not? 

If you haven't baked with the Starbucks VIA instant coffee-believe me, you should.  It is perfect for baking.

I mixed it with the 1/2 and 1/2 and let it sit a while before mixing it in the egg and dry ingredients:

As it sits, all the granules dissolve and it smells heavenly.  I added it to the dry ingredients with the egg:

Then, I added the chocolate chips, mixed and formed it into a log.  I followed the directions from the King Arthur website about the size of the scone dough.  It's really helpful to know you are on the right track and kind of fun to use a ruler for baking.  Those little white spots in the dough are chunks of BUTTER, yes butter. I am pretty sure that's why these are so moist when they are done. 

Again, they went into the freezer and then the oven.  The end result was yummy!  Next time, I think I will sprinkle them with a little raw or sprinkle sugar for a touch of sweet (the dough isn't very sweet at all) and a little extra crunch which makes the cinnamon ones so delicious.  Hungry yet?  Here's a bite:

Here is the recipe for the Cinnamon ones (again, from King Arthur Flour)