Iced Vanilla Sconuts

Ingredients

For the scones:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
3/8 teaspoon salt
10 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces
1 large egg
1/4 cup or more of heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon butter extract optional, I used Lorann
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg optional
1/4-1/2 cup confectioner's sugar for rolling sconut holes

For the icing:

2 cups confectioner's sugar
2-4 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
food coloring
sprinkles

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, two knives or you can rub the butter in with your fingertips, until the mixture is crumbly and you have varied size butter chunks no larger than peas.
Crack an egg in a glass measuring cup then add cream until you reach 1/2 cup. Mix with a fork until well blended.
Make a well in the center of flour mixture and pour in the egg/cream mixture. Toss gently with a fork until you've distributed the liquid well and mixture begins to hold together a bit. Your mixture is going to seem to be too dry, but try to resist adding more liquid. Your scones will not hold shape with too much liquid.
Use your hands to knead the mixture in the bowl until it comes together. This may take a couple of minutes, but as you work the butter and cream mixture, it will begin to come together. You don't want to melt the butter, so if you have hot hands, try using a large spoon or a spatula to fold the mixture onto itself in between using your hands.
Once the dough comes together with no crumbs, on a lightly floured surface, roll it to about 1/2 inch thick. Using a doughnut cutter dipped in flour, cut out scones, gathering scraps (save the holes!) and re-rolling until you've used up all of the dough. You can form the last bit of dough into additional sconut holes.
Place all sconuts and holes on an ungreased baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes so that the butter in the dough has time to firm up again. After refrigeration, separate the sconuts to another baking sheet, arranging them about 2 inches apart. Put the holes back into the refrigerator.
Brush tops with additional cream and bake for 10-15 minutes or until puffed and lightly golden on the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for a few minutes, then remove to finish cooling on a rack..
Bake sconut holes for 6-8 minutes or until puffed and lightly golden. Remove from oven. Allow to cool and set up for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a rack to finish cooling.
Place the 1/4 -1/2 cup confectioner's sugar in a small bowl. Roll sconut holes in sugar until completely coated.
For the sconuts. whisk the 2 cups of confectioner's sugar with vanilla and enough milk until desired consistency. For a nice opaque glaze, you want it fluid, but still thick. Decide how many sconuts you would like dipped in white and do those first. Add any sprinkles or other toppings while glaze is still wet.
Once you've finished with the white, separate it into as many bowls as you want colors and add desired food coloring. I needed less than a drop for each bowl and just used the tip of a toothpick dipped in a droplet to get my desired colors. Add milk, as necessary, to keep your icing at good dipping consistency. Finish dipping and topping and allow to dry.
If you prefer to completely coat the entire sconut and/or sconut holes, make your glaze thinner by adding more milk so that you have a more transparent glaze. Carefully dip and flip your scones in the glaze and set aside on a rack to dry.

Recipe Notes

*Store baked scones well covered or in an air tight container at room temperature. Because of the high butter ratio, these will still be good the next day or even two.

*You can also freeze them after you cut and separate them on a tray, then put them in a zipped freezer bag to bake at a future time. Just add a couple of minutes to the baking time.

*Because of the hole, these will bake faster than if they were cut into triangles. Take care not to over bake or you will have dry scones. I probably could have baked mine a minute or two less than you see in the pictures. The holes will likely bake up a bit drier because they are so small. They are still very buttery so when rolled in powdered sugar, they taste like Russian teacake cookies. Alternately, you could just dip the holes in the icing for extra moisture.

*I didn't have a doughnut cutter so I used a 2 1/2" round biscuit cutter and a 1 1/4" round cutter (for the holes) to make my sconuts.

*If you want to make regular vanilla bean scones, roll or pat dough about 3/4 to 1" inch thick in the shape of a square (see Favorite Cinnamon Scones) and cut into large or small triangles. After baking, you can ice the tops of them with the white vanilla glaze, or you could make the glaze much thinner and dip the entire scone into the glaze completely coating it.

*I added the nutmeg and the buttery dough flavor just for the sconut recipe. It is completely optional and I don't include either of them when I make simple vanilla scones. In other words, if you don't have them in your pantry, don't buy them just for this recipe.