Cinnamon Struesel Scones

Cinnamon Streusel Scones (slightly over baked)

My family and I moved to a new house a few weeks ago, and for some reason I had signed up to take a baked breakfast treat to a friend's end-of-cancer-treatment party the Sunday of our moving weekend. Not sure what I was thinking but it actually worked out because it gave me a great reason to try out my new oven--a GAS oven, no less! I was stoked (no pun intended) to see how my new oven worked. 
Well, I tried it on the convection setting, which ended up being a mistake, because as I'd already read (and apparently not believed), convection settings generally bake things faster than a regular setting. So the scones you see are overbaked probably by 4 to 5 minutes on the convection setting. I keep meaning to try them again, but I need an event for making scones because these are so good I will definitely eat too many.
These scones are pretty sweet, but in an absolutely delightful way. They're kind of a biscuity rather than cakey version of something like a Hostess crumb cake. Mmm.
My husband even ate several of these and declared, "I don't normally like eating the scones you make, but these I want to keep eating!" I'll take that as a huge compliment and look for an opportunity to make these again as soon as possible. Maybe for a housewarming party...

Cinnamon Streusel Scones

Streusel Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 6 tablespoons butter, cut into slices or chunks

Scone Ingredients:

• 3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/3 cup sugar (rounded)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 cup half & half

 Instructions: Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. (Parchment isn’t necessary, but it helps.) 

Make the streusel first: Place sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Add the butter and then with your fingers, kneed the butter into the dry ingredients until it is evenly distributed and streusel starts to form small clumps. Set aside.
  Now make the scone dough:Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda into large bowl. (By "sift" I mean put the ingredients in a large bowl and stir well with a whisk.) Add butter and cut in with a pastry blender, until mixture resembles coarse meal. It's fine to still have some visible chunks of butter about the size of a used pencil eraser Add half & half, tossing with fork until moist clumps form. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Knead briefly to bind dough, about 4 turns.  Cut ball of dough in half.   

Form dough into two 1/2-inch-thick circles. Spread about half of the streusel onto the surface of one of the circles. Press down lightly. Top with the other circle and press lightly to smoosh them together. Don't press too much though. 

Cut the stacked circle into 6 wedges. Then cut each wedge into four somewhat equal triangles by cutting off the tip and then cutting the back side into three triangles, like so...
 
Carefully transfer wedges to prepared baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Sprinkle each with some streusel. Bake at 375°F until scones are golden brown, about 12-16 minutes. (If you're baking one pan at a time, place the waiting pan in the fridge while the first bakes. If you're baking both pans at the same time, swap oven rack levels about 10 minutes into baking. ) Let baked scones stand on baking sheet 10 minutes. Then with a spatula, transfer to a wire rack to cool more. Serve scones warm or at room temperature.

Makes 2 dozen little scones

I like my new quartz countertops.

The streusel gets a little messy, but it's all delicious.