Gluten Free Cinnamon Honey Scones

I am pretty adamant that anyone who is a guest in my home should have some delicious to eat.  It's how I show my love for people so I have no issues with planning menus around people with different dietary considerations.  I actually consider it a little bit of a food challenge and that's fun for me.  Vegetarian?  Easy.  Low Sodium?  Done.  On a diet?  Fine.  Vegan?  This one is harder but doable.  Gluten Free?  You betcha!  I have a dear friend who is gluten intolerant and I can't possibly allow her to come over without giving her something delicious to eat.

Therefore, at our Easter party I made a gluten free version of the Cinnamon Honey Scones in the Bouchon Bakery cookbook.  This gluten-full scone is my favorite scone I've ever made so I challenged myself a bit to turn it gluten free and it turned out really well!

The basic scone dough I borrowed from the King Arthur Flour website, which is the brand of gluten free all purpose flour I had on hand.  I figured if it was their flour and their recipe, it would be pretty well vetted.  I do this quite often... I find something random in my pantry, decide to make something with it and go to the manufacturers website to snag a recipe.  It usually works pretty well.

I modified the recipe by substituting cinnamon honey cubes for the dried fruit and they turned out so yummy!  I had a few left after the shindig and CA and I been nibbling on them ever since.  If I didn't tell you're they're gluten free, you might not even have noticed.

Gluten Free Cinnamon Honey Scones
adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

Cinnamon Honey Cubes
3 T Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
2 1/2 T Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 ounce Butter
1 T Honey

Scone Dough
1 3/4 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
1/4 cup Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Xantham Gum
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold Butter
2 Eggs
1/3 cup cold Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Honey Butter Glaze
3 T melted Butter
1 T Honey
Decorating Sugar (optional)

Combine all the ingredients for the cinnamon honey cubes in a small bowl and mix with your hands until you get a uniform paste.  Press the paste into a 4-inch square on a sheet of plastic wrap.  Wrap tightly and freeze until solid, about 2 hours. (You can freeze this for up to a week if you want to)  Once it is frozen, cut the paste into 1/4 inch cubes and put it back into the freezer until you are ready to incorporate it into the scone dough.

Whisk together all the dry ingredients for the scones (flour, sugar, baking powder, xantham gum and salt).  Cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes, making sure it is still cold.  If it warms up while you're cutting it, put it back into the freezer for a few minutes.  Add the butter to the dry ingredients and mix on low speed or with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly (you don't want it to form a dough ball or the scones will be too dense).  Whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla.  Add the egg mixture to the dry/butter mixture and mix on low speed until it just comes together.  Add the cinnamon honey cubes and mix on low speed until they are just incorporated into the dough (you still want to see chunks of them).

Place the dough on a piece of plastic wrap, flatten it with your hands and shape it into a 6" x 12" block.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

Remove the dough from the fridge and cut it into 8 larger scones (3"x3") or 16 smaller scones (for the party, I did 16 small scones in triangle shapes so I cut the dough into 8 3"x3" squares, then in half on the diagonal).  Freeze the dough overnight (or for at least 2 hours).

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place the frozen scones on a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

While the scones are baking mix together the melted butter and honey for the glaze.  Immediately after removing the scones from the oven, brush them with the glaze and sprinkle them with decorating sugar (if using).


Now, I need you to go out and find someone who can't eat gluten and make these for them.  Or make them for people who can eat gluten and see if they notice anything funny.

Julie