Soft and buttery and packed with streusel, these cinnamon streusel einkorn scones are like coffee cake in scone form and I want to eat them all fall long!
What is Einkorn Flour?
I started playing around with einkorn flour a couple years ago and I am a big fan. Einkorn is an ancient grain like many other grains we use, but what is special about einkorn is that it has never been genetically modified or hybridized. It is exactly the same as it was 12,000 years ago which is pretty amazing. Among other benefits, einkorn has a unique gluten structure and many people who suffer from gluten intolerance are able to tolerate einkorn. Because of this unique gluten structure, Einkorn flour is perfect for softer baked goods such as scones, muffins, cakes, etc. Read more about Einkorn here.
Once I went down the einkorn rabbithole, I had to create an einkorn scone since scone recipes are my thing! I plan to create a lot more einkorn recipes, but in the meantime be sure to check out all of my scone recipes including glazed vanilla bean scones (like starbucks but better!), cara cara orange scones (no eggs), and blackberry ginger scones.
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Ingredients
SCONES
- heavy cream
- egg
- vanilla extract or paste
- einkorn flour - you may use all purpose einkorn flour or whole wheat einkorn flour
- light brown sugar
- ground cinnamon
- baking powder
- kosher salt
- unsalted butter (although I often use salted)
STREUSEL
- light brown sugar
- ground cinnamon
- unsalted butter (remainder of stick from scones)
- einkorn flour
- kosher salt
CINNAMON VANILLA GLAZE
- powdered sugar
- milk or cream
- ground cinnamon
- vanilla extract or paste
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
- Combine streusel ingredients in a small bowl and mix together with your fingers until a moist, crumbly mixture forms. Set aside.
- Mix cream, egg, and vanilla together and set aside.
- Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add diced or grated butter and mix well with fingers or a pastry cutter until you have very small bits of butter throughout. If using grated butter simply mix in with a fork.
- Slowly drizzle wet ingredients into dry while mixing with a fork until you have a moist dough - it is ok if a little bit of dry flour remains.
- Dump dough onto floured surface and gently squeeze to bring it together. Press into a rectangle of about 1 inch thickness. Cut into 4 equal pieces. Place ¼ of the streusel mixture onto 3 of the dough portions. Stack the dough portions on top of each other - make sure the un-streuseled piece is on top.
- Press dough down and pat into a circle of about 1 inch thickness and top with remaining streusel. Place this dough disk in the freezer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, preheat oven to 400 degrees F and divide dough disk into 8 wedges. Separate wedges onto a parchment lined pan leaving about 1 inch between. These do spread a bit but it is ok if they bump into each other during baking.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes. While scones bake mix all glaze ingredients in a small bowl. Allow scones to cool for about 20 minutes before drizzling with glaze.
Here are some step-by-step photos of how to make these cinnamon streusel einkorn scones.
Combine streusel ingredients in a small bowl.
mix well with fingers or a fork until you have a moist crumbly mixture.
Next, mix cream, egg, and vanilla and set aside.
mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and then add cold, cubed or shredded butter.
Rub butter into flour with fingers or with a pastry cutter. If using shredded butter simply mix in with a fork.
Slowly drizzle wet mixture into dry while stirring with a fork until a moist dough forms.
Dump dough onto floured surface and pat into a rectangle about 1 inch thick
Divide dough into 4 equal squares and top 3 of the squares with streusel reserving some for the top.
Stack dough squares on top of each other. Make sure the un-streuseled square is on top.
Press dough into a circle of about 1 inch thickness, top with remaining streusel, refrigerate or freeze for 30-60 minutes.
Divide chilled dough into 8 wedges
Space about 1 inch apart and bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.
Where can I purchase Einkorn Flour?
I get mine from Thrive Market since my local stores don't carry it. You can also source it from Jovial Foods, Azure Standard, or search in your area as you may have some stores that stock it.
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Make ahead
After cutting the scones into 8 wedges, you can separate them on a parchment lined tray, freeze them solid, transfer to airtight, freezer safe container, and bake them straight from frozen whenever you wish. This is especially great if you only want one or two scones at a time!
Storage
Scones are best fresh but can be stored, covered, at room temperature for up to 2 days. If you want to make ahead see above for make ahead tips. If you want to bake them ahead, once cooled store them in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 days or in the freezer for up to a month. Glaze just before serving.
FAQ
In most recipes, yes, however keep in mind that it is best suited to softer, cakier items like scones. You would not want to use einkorn flour for a chewy pizza crust. You will need to decrease the liquid in most recipes if you are replacing the all purpose flour with einkorn flour.
Avoid over-mixing your dough when making scones. I like to mix with a fork to avoid over-mixing and over-working the dough. Also avoid adding too much liquid. You want a moist but not wet dough.
5 of my top tips to making great scones:
1. Start with cold ingredients - cold butter, cold egg, cold cream - some people freeze the dry ingredients and the bowls/utensils. I think that's overkill.
2. Something new I've been doing is to grate the cold butter on a box grater. It is a game changer and creates the perfect butter to flour ratio (and no need to use a pastry cutter! Woohoo!)
3. Err on the side of too little liquid - it is better to have a slightly dry dough than a too-wet dough. You can incorporate the dryer bits as you are folding and stacking the dough.
4. Mix gently - my weapon of choice is a fork - while slowly drizzling in wet ingredients. You aren't trying to develop any gluten in these tender babies.
5. Once mixed, divide and stack dough 2-3 times to get perfect, flaky layers.
Freeze dough for 30 minutes or more before baking.
Related
Looking for other scone recipes? Try these:
Pairing
Pair these scones with any of my breakfast recipes:
- Sourdough Discard Blueberry Muffins
- Sourdough Discard Cinnamon Raisin English Muffins
- Sourdough Granola
- Sourdough Crepes
Cinnamon Streusel Einkorn Scones
Soft and buttery and packed with streusel, these cinnamon streusel einkorn scones are like coffee cake in scone form and I want to eat them all fall long!
- Total Time: 40 minutes plus chilling
- Yield: 8 large scones
Ingredients
FOR THE SCONES
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract or paste
- 3 cups flour, plus more for dusting (regular all purpose or all purpose einkorn - see notes)
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ tablespoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 and ½ sticks (6 ounces) butter, diced and very cold
FOR THE CINNAMON STREUSEL:
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 4 tablespoons butter (remainder of stick from scones)
- ¼ cup flour
- pinch of salt
FOR THE CINNAMON VANILLA GLAZE:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2-4 tablespoons milk or cream
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
Instructions
- Combine streusel ingredients in a small bowl and mix together with your fingers until a moist, crumbly mixture forms. Set aside.
- Mix cream, egg, and vanilla together and set aside.
- Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add diced or grated butter and mix well with fingers or a pastry cutter until you have very small bits of butter throughout. If using grated butter simply mix in with a fork.
- Slowly drizzle wet ingredients into dry while mixing with a fork until you have a moist dough - it is ok if a little bit of dry flour remains.
- Dump dough onto floured surface and gently squeeze to bring it together. Press into a rectangle of about 1 inch thickness. Cut into 4 equal pieces. Place ¼ of the streusel mixture onto 3 of the dough portions. Stack the dough portions on top of each other - make sure the un-streuseled piece is on top.
- Press dough down and pat into a circle of about 1 inch thickness and top with remaining streusel. Place this dough disk in the freezer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, preheat oven to 400 degrees F and divide dough disk into 8 wedges. Separate wedges onto a parchment lined pan leaving about 1 inch between. These do spread a bit but it is ok if they bump into each other during baking.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes. While scones bake mix all glaze ingredients in a small bowl. Allow scones to cool for about 20 minutes before drizzling with glaze.
Notes
Make ahead: After cutting the scones into 8 wedges, you can separate them on a parchment lined tray, freeze them solid, transfer to airtight, freezer safe container, and bake them straight from frozen whenever you wish. This is especially great if you only want one or two scones at a time!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes plus chilling
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: breakfast, dessert, brunch
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Rebecca says
FYI, half the amount of cream/whole milk for freshly ground whole wheat einkhorn. The dough was nigh unworkable and the scones completely flattened in the oven. However, the taste was great. They were quite crumbly the next day so I leaned into that, crumbled up the scones, and used it to top a plum crumble. Delicious! Mishaps need not be failures. 🙂
anita | wild thistle kitchen says
Hi Rebecca. Thanks for your feedback. Yes, this recipe was tested with store-bought all purpose einkorn and that is what I call for in the recipe ingredients, not freshly milled. I have not dabbled in freshly milled flour yet as the mill I want has been sold out for ages! I do know that freshly milled behaves very differently than all-purpose or even store-bought whole grain flour. Just so you know in the future and for anyone else reading this comment, if the texture of the dough was as wet and unworkable as you say, you could have simply added more flour to make it look more like the dough in the step-by-step photos and had a much better outcome in the finished scone. That is one reason I like providing the step-by-step photos. And the einkorn flour does create a more crumbly scone than regular ap flour. I'm very glad you were able to roll with it though and create something even more delicious with the leftovers! Thanks again for your feedback. - Anita
Rebecca says
Hi! I have been baking with sprouted spelt for a while and more recently AP einkorn flour. Comparing scone recipes, yours calls for slightly more butter, heavy cream, plus an egg. But your dough does not look wet at all. Do you weigh your einkorn flour? Or do you find that your recipe creates a more tender scone compared to others are more crumbly?
anita | wild thistle kitchen says
Hi Rebecca! I do not typically weigh my flour for scone recipes. I have not tried other einkorn scone recipes, but I'd say in general most scones are a bit dry and crumbly for my tastes. These are very tender scones because of the butter, cream, and egg but also because of the einkorn. Because einkorn has a unique gluten structure compared to other wheat flours it creates very tender baked goods. And the dough should not be wet, just lightly moistened. I hope this all helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂
Rebecca says
Thank you for the fast reply!! I have been looking for a “master scone” recipe that I can add whatever mix-ins I want and this one fit the bill! I made this scone recipe with AP einkorn flour and added 1 T vanilla extract like your vanilla scone recipe. That recipe has more butter and sugar so I stuck with this one, minus the cinnamon crumble. These were amazing!!! Now, I did shape into a rectangle and cut into 12 triangles, baked straight from the freezer. I kept them close to avoid drying out but I don’t think that’s necessary in this recipe, I had a small amount of butter pooling so I may be less shy with flouring the surface/dough next time - dough is sticky, and give them more space next time. THANK YOU!!