Cinnamon Streusel Scones

It's funny, now that I'm moving away from the winter squash sweets and dishes, I find myself more and more being drawn towards cinnamon and all other manner of sweet confections.  Then I'm reminded of course, that I've been trying to move away from the sweets and bread-y dishes.  I seriously can't help myself.  I'm not sure I can ever keep far enough away from them.   

Anyhow, I realized I hadn't ever made scones before - never ever.  Thus, my hunt for the perfect (and frankly, easy to make) scone began.  Luckily, I didn't have to hunt all that long.  I found this recipe here and decided it looked yummy enough - and easy - to make. 

The verdict? It was wonderfully yummy and easy to make. This recipe is a keeper :)

CINNAMON STREUSEL SCONES

INGREDIENTS:
scones:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cold butter, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

streusel filling:

• 2 tablespoons cold butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

topping:

• 1 egg white, beaten
• 2 teaspoons sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.


In a large bowl, add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Cut in butter until pea size crumbles. In separate bowl, stir yogurt, egg and vanilla together. Stir into flour mixture. Pour onto a lightly floured surface and knead five or six times. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into about an 8 inch circle. Carefully place one dough circle onto a greased or lined baking sheet.


In a small bowl, combine streusel filling until crumbly. Sprinkle over bottom dough circle. Place remaining dough circle over streusel filling. Pinch edges together gently. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut into 8 wedges.


Brush with egg white and sprinkle with sugar.


Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.


Serve warm or at room temperature.

PERSONAL NOTES:

Boy, these were pretty easy. I thought I'd run into some difficulty when it came time to put the two halves together but it actually worked rather nicely.  I used a rolling pin to flatten out the dough, piled on the streusel mixture then laid on the top layer of dough.  I used a pizza cutter to slice down the edges to make a square piece.  Then I cut the wedges from there.  Easy peasy.  I half expected the streusel filling to ooze out during baking, but it never happened.  Must be enough flour in there to keep that from happening.

Just so you know, I didn't have vanilla yogurt so I used fat free Greek yogurt.  It worked out great.  Like it was made to be used for scones.  I added vanilla extract and half of a vanilla bean (scooped out with the vanilla mixed in).

YUM!

Snickerdoodle Muffins. Oh yeah.

There's something about cinnamon and sugar together that makes me smile.  Actually, I smile about a lot of different food combinations but these two take me back to my childhood.  To the good things in my childhood.  It's probably safe to say I'll always enjoy these two flavor combinations. 

Naturally, this looked too good to pass by when I saw it on Pinterest.  Ever since I joined that site a couple weeks ago, I cannot stop trolling for all kinds of yummy goodness that people have to share.  A lot of what I find I call "food porn".  It's just that good - at least to look at.  That said, I had to give this recipe a test drive. 

I've made snickerdoodle cookies and blondie bars so it only makes sense to try these guys out too.

Original recipe can be found here. 


SNICKERDOODLE MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS:

2 ¼ cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cup buttermilk

For the Topping:

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line muffin cups with muffin liners. (Do not use cooking spray.)
In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tarter, nutmeg, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Beat in half of the dry ingredients. Beat in the sour cream and buttermilk. Beat in remaining dry ingredients until just incorporated (batter will be soft).
To make the topping, in a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon.

Using an ice cream or large cookie scooper, drop the scoop of batter into the bowl with the sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle the dough with the mixture and roll it around until it is covered completely in cinnamon sugar. Place the ball into the muffin liner. Repeat with remaining batter. Sprinkle the leftover cinnamon sugar onto the tops the muffins.

Bake until muffin tops are golden brown, 18 to 22 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Set on wire rack to cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove muffins from tin and serve warm.

Makes 16 muffins.

PERSONAL NOTES:
I made a few changes to these.  For starters, I didn't have any buttermilk so I improvised. In place of the buttermilk I used cream cheese.  It worked out great!  The muffins are still light, fluffy and soft.

The directions state to drop scoops of batter into the cinnamon/sugar mixture but I found this very difficult.  I dropped in a scoop and it kinda went all over the place.  So instead, I scooped batter into the paper liners then I scooped smaller amounts of cinnamon/sugar and placed them on top of the batter.  I made sure the batter was covered and that was that.  I put them in the oven.  Of course, coming out the other end, some of the sugar topping baked off onto the muffin pan.  It made it a little challenging to clean, but no big deal otherwise.  The muffins looked and tasted great.
Oh - I also substituted brown sugar for the granulated sugar.  I like it better that way.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

Back in early December, I went to dinner with a girlfriend of mine for some good Japanese food.  While I love Japanese in general, my friend went on to insist that I try the tempura cheesecake for dessert.  Really??? Fried cheesecake?  I know that somewhere in the middle of the country people are already frying up sticks of butter, but did I really want to have tempura cheesecake? 

Yes, I really did need to try the tempura cheesecake. It was outrageous.  It was warm, it was creamy and cheesecakey with a typical (and yes, absolutely delicious) tempura shell.

The reason I bring up the tempura cheesecake is because when I tried these Pumpkin Streusel Muffins, the inner cream cheese filling reminded me of the tempura cheesecake.  You really need to try it to know what I'm getting at.  And while the muffins are good at room tempurature, they are MUCH better warmed up.  Then again, most things are...right?

So here's the next muffin experimentation.  The original recipe can be found here from allrecipes.com.  It was pretty easy to make.  The combination of flavors - pumpkin and cream cheese - and textures - brown sugar and moist cake - make this a hit. 

PUMPKIN STREUSEL MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup canned or cooked pumpkin

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, cut into cubes

STREUSEL:

 

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon cold butter

1/4 cup finely chopped nuts

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. In another bowl, beat the egg, milk, pumpkin and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups one-fourth full. Place one cream cheese cube in the center of each muffin cup; top with remaining batter. In a bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon; cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add nuts. Sprinkle over batter. Bake at 400 degrees F for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

PERSONAL NOTES:

When adding the cream cheese to the muffins, I used reduced fat.  Plus, I added 1/2 egg and 1 tsp sugar and blended them till creamy.  I felt it added a little extra "umph" to the mix.

 

I also substituted unsweetened applesauce for the oil.  Actually, I used 1/4 cup applesauce plus 1 tbls.  Then added 1 tbls oil.  For some reason muffins come together much nicer if it has even a little bit of oil.  So I add just that small amount. 

The streusel topping became rather gooey when baked.  A lot of it stuck to the pan which made me soak it for some time before scrubbing it off.  But by then it wiped clean pretty easily.