I will confess that I go to Starbucks and order a tall latte with one raw sugar 364 days per year. Don’t tell my husband, but some days I even go twice. Shamefully, I even run out on Thanksgiving morning and get one. Thank God, for the sake of my conscience, they are closed Christmas Day.
Every morning, usually on the way home from the gym, I stop for my coffee fix (which un-does about half of what I have done that morning during my work out) and every morning, without fail, as we are going through the drive through, my 3 year old daughter yells from the back seat “May I please have a banilla-bean scone?”
I am a sucker, and at least half the time, I say yes. It always pains me though. These scones, while yummy, are about 1×2 inches, and cost 95 cents a piece. A rip off of epic proportions. I would imagine they are so popular because of their tininess. Parents like me feel like they can give them to their kids, without the guilt that goes a long with giving them, say, a cake pop or a cookie. Dieters feel like they can have a tiny little pastry without their coffee without the massive amount of calories.
Today, in the drive through, as Daphne yelled out her request for her “banilla-bean scone,” a light bulb went off in my head. I told her I would make her some when we got home. And I did.
I made 20 scones with $2.00 worth of ingredients, thus saving myself a cool $18.00. I’m going to pop these babies in the freezer, and pull one out on special days on the way to the gym. She will not know the difference. The scones were ready to go into the oven before it was done preheating. Easy and cheap. A winning combination.
You can get vanilla beans for a very fair price at Trader Joes, but by far, the cheapest place to get them is at Costco during the holidays. I always stock up then. For directions on cooking with vanilla beans, click here. I also always sift my sugar or flour or whatever I have mixed the bean with before adding wet ingredients, it gets out any big chunks.
Oh, and I hate to toot my own horn, but these scones were a lot softer and tastier than the dried out ones at Starbucks.
Enjoy!
Recipe from one of my very favorite blogs, Baking Bites
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean or 2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Cut vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape seeds out with a small, sharp knife. Add to butter and sugar mixture and beat to incorporate. Mix in half of the flour mixture, followed by the milk. Stir in remaining flour mixture until dough comes together into a firm, slightly sticky mass.
Divide dough into 5 equal pieces and roll into tennis ball-sized rounds. Place on a lightly floured surface and flatten each ball into a disc about 1/2 – 3/4-inch thick. After all balls have been flattened, cut each into quarters and arrange on prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 11-15 minutes, until scones are light golden at the edges. Cool on a wire rack before glazing.
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
4 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
small amount of vanilla bean (scraps from scones)
Pour over cooled scones.
Rumbly in my Tumbly 
I made these today and they are so nice! I've never had the Starbucks version before, but I'm 100% sure they can't be better. These are super easy (especially since there is no cutting in butter!) and definitely please a crowd. They're also the perfect size for the amount of sweetness they pack. To get the little bit of vanilla scraps for the glaze I put the 4 tbsp. of milk and the cleaned out vanilla bean halves in a small container with a lid and let it sit in the fridge until it was glazing time so any bits left would come out. I think these would be an excellent addition to a holiday treat plate with festive icing!
Kylie, thank you so much for the nice comment. I am so glad you like these, that is a great idea about decorating them for the holidays.
my son calls them baby scones, or baby banilla scones.I too had the same thought, about making them at home, just yesterday.Thanks for sharing the recipe 🙂
Mamasonshine- Hope they turn out as well for you as they did for me. 🙂 I love your blog, will totally be using your Build-a-Bear pacifier trick with my son. 🙂
Loved this recipe! Turned out much better than the dried out ones from Starbucks! Moist and delicious! Bought vanilla bean paste the other day.. Can't wait to substitute the vanilla extract for that! 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
Do glad you liked them. I agree, they are much Bette than Starbucks! Love the vanilla bean paste idea. Thanks for visiting!
Thanks Shannon! I let my son help shape them, so they didn't turn out quite so nice looking, but he did love them. I only baked about half the recipe and then saved the rest for later in the week. Worked great. 🙂
Mamasonshine, so much fun to cook with the kiddos in the kithen! I am glad you enjoyed these. Thanks for the comment and for visiting.
These were fantastic! I ended up halving the glaze, and it still seemed like it was a lot.I had always read that butter had to be kept cold, cold, cold when making scones, so I was curious how these would turn out. They were absolutely delicious, and I'm about to make my 2nd batch right now.
Thus is my first scone recipe without cold butter as well! I'm so glad you enjoyed them as much as I do, thanks for the comment and for visiting!
Thus is my first scone recipe without cold butter as well! I'm so glad you enjoyed them as much as I do, thanks for the comment and for visiting!
Thanks to your AMAZINGLY EASY recipe (that did not require me to have a food processor), I just pulled my first ever batch of scones out of the oven. They look beautiful! Now the wait for them to cool so I can dunk them in the glaze. (Yes, clearly just pouring it on will not be enough to satisfy my glaze addiction. Must coat them completely!! Lol!) Great way to spend a chilly day in Fort Worth. 😊
Lyn- so glad you liked them, I love this recipe. 🙂 Thanks for the comment and for visiting!
Shannon, I have to tell you, they were even better than I expected!! Even my husband — who can take or leave the Starbucks ones — thought they were delicious! Thank you again for a recipe I will be making time and time again. 😊
Lyn, so glad you liked these! Thanks for the comment!
Thank you so much for this recipe! My husband has had me make this 3 or 4 times in the last week to week and a half. Even my 3 yr old loves helping me make them they are that easy! Only down side is they are pretty addicting and there never seems to be enough!
I’m so glad you like these so much! Thanks for the comment and for visiting!
I just made these and they are really good but the glaze wasn’t the pretty white color in the picture. Do you have any advice on how to get it that color?
Hi-
For the nice white color, you’d need to use a vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract in the glaze. 🙂 Either that, or a clear vanilla extract. The brown kind will definitely change the color a bit.
I am going to be the person I hate right now – and say all the things I did differently on the recipe!! I was running low on butter so I did half butter, half shortening – and things still turned out perfectly! I also used two whole vanilla pods, as I had some that were starting to get a bit dry. But, in all honestly, I’m not sure if it makes that much of a difference – they just look a bit more ‘speckled’. Given that this was a bit of a ‘clear out the pantry’ recipe, it turned out wonderfully and they feel “free” since I was using odds and ends of ingredients. Take THAT, Starbucks! No $.95 for you today!