Sally’s Baking Addiction technique recommendations are spot on.Sally’s Baking Addiction, scones

I love to bake but dislike having to cut butter into flour. If you're looking for a breakfast sweet, how about muffins?

Eileen, I usually freeze, then grate my butter. Not too much cutting into the flour required! It works really well.

As for a recipe, we enjoy the Hershey cinnamon chip scone recipe found here: Easy Cinnamon Scones Recipe | Hersheyland

A convenience note on scones: you can prep the dough, shape shape, cut into wedges and freeze. When you want them ready, simply brush with buttermilk or whatever, sprinkle with sugar for glisten and crunch, and bake. Nice if you just want a few at a time since scones are best the day they are baked.

I use Paul Hollywood’s recipe as my go to, the proportions and oven temp just seem to work . You can find it everywhere with a google search, I never bothered to get one of his cookbooks bc the scones were the only baked good of his that I wanted to make. I just google it every time.

Here’s a link from the Cooking forum that you might find useful.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6428053/scones-easy-and-yummy#n=34

Thank you for all the excellent input! Tbh, I'm starting to question grating butter with a 3 and 5 yo... I think I may freeze a batch of the dough ahead of time, and they can "help" by placing them on the baking sheet. (A copout, I know.)

Maybe you’d enjoy doing these molasses cookies. They are a family favorite. With very small children you could have the dough done, and they could do the final steps of dipping in water, suger, and placing on tge tray. Still actively participating a bit.

https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/molasses-cookies-0

One year, my 3 year old great-niece was coming to visit for a few hours. I really wanted to get the ”coolest aunt” award. Before she got here, I made up sugar cookies using this recipe which is my all time go-to for sugar cookies. When she got here, I portioned the dough, then gave it to her to roll into balls and then to roll the balls in sprinkles. We put the balls of dough on the cookie sheet and shoved them in the oven for the required time. She thought it was so cool that she had baked cookies. All-in-all, not much cooking but enough to give her a sense of accomplishment.

@Feathers11, your plan is totally NOT a cop-out. 3 and 5 year olds don’t have a very long attention span. Baking a whole recipe of any sort may be too much for them. My grands are 4, 7, and 7. For sure the 4 y/o does not have sufficient attention for an entire recipe. The 7s might, if the recipe is very short…like combining 2 - 3 ingredients.

I would not grate butter with the 3 and 5 year olds. Besides the risk of cuts, warm little hands will take longer, soften or melt more of the butter and they will likely lose patience with the whole thing.

I would make cream scones -- a recipe that uses only cream and no butter. I've made them out of curiosity and to see if they were easier or faster for a quick morning bake. I'm not sure they were my favorite, but they were certainly good and more than good enough for 3 and 5 year olds.No, They are perfect for that. Unfortunately, I have made them only once and am struggling to remember which recipe I used. If I can nail it down, I'll come back to let you know. In the meantime, ATK and KA cream scone recipes were mentioned in that linked thread and either of those should be trusted sources.

I’ve made those cream scones, i think it was an ATK recipe, You have to warm the cream before you add it, its a very specific temperature range. Mine have come out well and the recipe comes together much more quickly, However they do have a different texture than the scones made with chilled butter. Not better or worse, just ditfferent.

Cream scones King Arthur

I’ve done a lot of baking but didn’t know about the cream vs butter/milk scones. Very helpful hints.

You could easily grate the butter ahead and put it back in the freezer. Kids love dumping ingredients into the bowl and mixing. Give them a little section of dough to pat out and shape would be a big hit. Maybe mix up some cinnamon sugar and let them sprinkle on top. I'd make a recipe and a half, so they can have some to work on and you can make some that will be ensured to be edible. Have fun!

All my scones do require cutting in the butter and I use a food processor for that. My favorite is orange cranberry which includes grating orange rind, so a lot of potential hazards there for little ones. They do make drop scones which may be easier or messier than the patted out dough.

For fun, here's a scone recipe from Queen Elizabeth II that uses melted butter instead.

I looked it up and apparently a teacup is 5.5 oz.

I remember my Mom had the cub scouts one day that was pouring rain outside, so she had them make what she called "magic cookies". I don't think I have the recipe any more, and they were rather awful...though when a kid, awful is good...but they were super easy. It was much like this one: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/pudding-mix-cookies-recipe-7662509 IIRC, she made them either with vanilla or chocolate pudding. The best part is it comes out like play dough so child-hand friendly for rolling and patting out. She said the boys said it was the best day ever. I think the children would find cookies more fun to eat than scones too!

This morning I made half a recipe of the KA cream scones. I just happened to have the exact amount of heavy cream needed and I threw it all together in about the time it's taken me to type these sentences.

They were surprisingly good. I just got home from an evening meeting and nuked one, split it open and slathered it with butter. Twelve hours later it was even better. I didn't add any vanilla because I wanted a scone, not a cookie. I actually prefer biscuits to scones, so cut back on the sugar.

I think these work really well in a pinch.

Off topic, but my granddaughters love making chocolate covered oreos. They've been doing that with me since they were two and four; they still want to do it ALL THE TIME! Chocolate covered oreos are a bit (way) too much for me, but they love them, and love taking them home. It's an easy, fun thing to do with decorations, etc.

Thanks for all of these great suggestions and recipes!

I'm back in reality about this. I'm going to try the scone recipe another time on my own.

What I wanted was a breakfast recipe because the 5yo sleeps with me, I don't have blackout curtains, we get up early so the parents *can* sleep in (the guest room does have blackout curtains!), and I wanted something to keep the littles busy early on and double as breakfast food.

With that, I'm going with muffins. The 3 yo can divide and place the paper liners in the muffin pan, and the 5 yo can mix. Easy and fun.

I am looking forward to trying the scone recipes, though. I appreciate everyone's input.

When my nephew was a tyke, he loved to help my Mom make pancakes for breakfast. She used to pour the batter with one bit one and two smaller ones on one side to make Mickey Mouse pancakes. Or she'd put a dab here, there and an arc then cover the whole thing with batter so when you flipped it over, there was a smiley face.

Feathers, your breakfast muffin plan will be fun I’m sure. perhaps mix the dry ingredients, the part that requires more thoughtful measurement, in advance. then in the morning you will be mixing, portioning, and baking.

carolb_w_fl - I use that when I make egg salad lol.

Baking with my nieces: I used to make the batter for stir and drop sugar cookies, then divide it into 2 or 3 bowls and add food coloring as desired. Nieces would be given all kinds of colored sugars, sprinkles, and stuff to pile on, then they bake in 8-10 mins and are done. Cookies are so cute, taste pretty good! and kids love it. Lmk if you want cookie recipe.

Hmm - never thought of that, seagrass. I use one of these for egg salad, and a fork to mix:

Thanks, Party! I'm sticking with the muffins because we're making them in the morning for breakfast. We have plans the remainder of the day. I will keep your cookie recipe in mind, though.

This ATK recipe for cream biscuits cropped up today. It involves using warm cream instead of cold straight out of the fridge. I'll try it next time.

Muffins are a great option and entry to baking with younin's. Have fun.

I know you're making muffins instead of scones with the littles (a good idea), but if you do eventually want to try a scone recipe, I have used this one from AnnT (that used to post on the removed-not-to-be-mentioned forum). I hate cutting in butter, but I did find using the grater made it so much easier and these scones came out perfect every time. I have not made them in ages. I think I will make them again soon (after we get back from vacation). Thanks for the reminder. My DH loved them.

https://thibeaultstable.com/2015/07/14/raspberry-scones/