These soft and buttery scones are not only loaded with cinnamon chips AND cinnamon brown sugar filling, but they’re also drizzled with the most to-die-for brown butter icing!
Aside from gorgeous spring flowers and homemade gifts, there’s nothing more synonymous with Mother’s Day than treating your mother to brunch or breakfast in bed. It’s one of the few days of the year that she’s not expected to cook for anyone, and she deserves to be treated like the queen she’s always been.
Whether it’s pancakes, waffles, french toast, or eggs in a basket, every mother has a breakfast favorite. For my mom, it was always scones. Specifically, HOMEMADE scones. There’s really nothing quite as comforting as a warm, buttery scone fresh from the oven.
But what if you could combine the heavenliness of a scone with the blissfulness of a cinnamon roll?
Stuffed with the most delicious brown sugar-cinnamon filling AND melty cinnamon chips, these scones have TWO times the cinnamon baked inside. Not to mention, the scone itself is perfectly soft, buttery, and tenderliciously flakey! I know,”tenderliciously” is definitely not a word, but I can’t think of a better way to describe these scones!
Oh! And did I forget to mention the brown butter icing?
Ok, so the brown butter icing might not have been totally necessary with the amount of sweetness baked into these scones, but STILL. It’s BROWN BUTTER ICING. How could anyone say no to that??
Although these scones might seem a little too time-consuming for your breakfast in bed shindig, they’re really not that difficult to make. Plus, you can always make them up the night before and bake them the next morning!
To start things off, you’re going to make the cinnamon brown sugar filling. All you have to do is combine some brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and softened butter. Just stir everything together until it creates a brown paste. Now it’s time to make the dough!
First, you’ll whisk the dry ingredients together. This includes your all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then it’s time to cut in the butter–COLD butter, to be more specific. In fact, I recommend chilling your butter in the freezer for at least 15 minutes. Cold ingredients create cold dough, and the colder the dough, the better the rise in the oven. When the oven heat hits the cold butter, air pockets are created, making for a supremely flaky scone!
Instead of simply cutting the butter up into small cubes, I used a cheese grater to grate the cold stick of butter into fine shreds. The small shreds of butter make it much easier to evenly cut the butter into the dry ingredients. And BEFORE you start blending away, the other ingredient you need to add is cream cheese. While it’s not the most traditional ingredient in scone recipes, the cream cheese not only adds an extra richness, but it also creates that wonderfully tender texture.
Once you’ve tossed the cinnamon chips into your buttery flour mixture, it’s time to move on to the wet ingredients. In a bowl, you’ll whisk some heavy cream, Greek yogurt, egg, and vanilla together. Sour cream or plain yogurt can be substituted for the greek yogurt, as long as it’s cultured. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, and use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to stir everything together. You might have to switch over to your hands in order to get the dough to hold together.
As with most biscuit/bread recipes, BARELY any kneading is necessary since you want to retain that rise and fluffiness in the dough. Just turn the dough out onto a floured surface, shape it into a ball, then roll it out into a 7″x14″ rectangle. Spread the cinnamon filling on the bottom half of the dough, then fold the bare half over the filling half. Seal the edges of the dough together, then cut the square disc into eight even wedges.
At this point, you can hold off on baking them if you want to serve them the next day. If that’s the case, just place the raw scones on a plate, wrap them in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until the next morning.
Now, let’s talk about the not-so-necessary, yet totally glorious brown butter icing, shall we?
While these scones would be perfectly fine just as they are, the icing is what makes these scones shine and shimmer. With just 3 ingredients–brown butter, powdered sugar and heavy cream–it’s also way too easy NOT to make.
Without a doubt, you won’t find a more perfect hybrid of cinnamon rolls and scones than these cinnama-licious beauties. They’re fluffy, doughy, and absolutely brimming with cinnamon!
So what are you waiting for?? Be the good son or daughter that you are and make your amazing mom these Cinnamon Roll Scones NOW!
Cinnamon Roll Scones
Ingredients
Cinnamon Brown Sugar Filling:
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
Dough:
- 2 ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter cold*
- 2 ounces cream cheese cut into small cubes
- ¾ cup cinnamon chips
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- ⅓ cup Greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons heavy cream or milk for brushing scones
Brown Butter Icing:
- 3 Tablespoons salted butter
- 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar
- 4-5 Tablespoons heavy cream or milk
Instructions
Make the Filling:
- In a medium bowl, stir the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter together until it forms a paste; set aside.
Make the Dough:
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Grate the butter on top of the dry ingredients. Add the cream cheese. Then use a fork or pastry blender to cut the butter and cream cheese into the flour. The mixture should resemble coarse crumbs. Stir in the cinnamon chips.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the heavy cream, yogurt (or sour cream), egg, and vanilla together until combined. Pour wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, and stir with a spatula until dough comes together. You might need to use your hands to mix the rest of the loose flour into the dough.
Assemble the Scones:
- Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and with floured hands, work dough into a ball. If it’s too sticky, add a little more flour. If it seems too dry, add 1-2 more Tablespoons milk.
- Roll dough out into a 7"x14" rectangle. Spread the filling evenly over the bottom half of the rectangle (see photo above). Fold the bare half over the filling, then pinch the ends together.
- Using a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut dough disc into 8 even wedges. Place them on the baking sheet 2 inches apart, and freeze for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Brush the tops of the scones with cream/milk. Bake for 18-23 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges and lightly browned on top. Remove from the oven and allow scones to cool slightly while you make the icing.
Make the Icing:
- In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. As the butter melts, it'll start to foam, then turn a clear golden color. Continue to stir the butter, scraping up any browned specks from the bottom of the pan as it starts to brown. It should have a nutty aroma.
- Once browned and nutty, turn off the heat and whisk in the powdered sugar and cream/milk until smooth.
- Drizzle the icing over the scones. Serve and enjoy!
Notes