Apple Snickerdoodle Scones -- When You Make Both Pies (and Still Want Something Extra)

Thanksgiving is next week and the preparations have begun — not the cooking, the cooking starts Wednesday, but the mental preparations, the guest list, the menu review, the annual argument with myself about whether to make both pumpkin pie and apple pie or choose one, which I resolve every year by making both, because choosing between pies is a form of violence I will not inflict on my family. We are fourteen this year: the full Feldman contingent plus Rebecca's Thomas plus two colleagues from school who have nowhere to go, because Thanksgiving is not a holiday for being alone, and Ruth Feldman does not allow people to be alone on Thanksgiving if she can prevent it.

I am teaching my juniors "The Crucible" this month, which is about mass hysteria and the destruction of community through fear, and which feels more relevant every year than it did the year before, which is not a development I find encouraging. But the play works. It always works. Miller knew that fear makes people betray their neighbors, and he wrote it so clearly that even seventeen-year-olds who have never been afraid of anything except their phone batteries dying can understand it, and understanding it is the beginning of resisting it.

Marvin is having more difficult days than easy ones now — a shift I noticed over the past month, a tipping point that didn't announce itself but arrived gradually, the way winter arrives: one morning you look out the window and realize it's been cold for a while and you just didn't want to admit it. He called Jennifer "Rebecca" on Sunday during the family visit. He asked me on Tuesday where his mother was. His mother died in 1994. I said she was resting. This is a lie. I am becoming a liar in service of kindness, which is not a career I planned for but which I am discovering I have a talent for.

The week before Thanksgiving I always need something to bake that isn’t the pies—something for the in-between days, the mental-preparation days, the days when Marvin asks for his mother and I need my hands to be doing something useful and warm. These apple snickerdoodle scones are exactly that: cinnamon-sugared, apple-flecked, the smell of them filling the kitchen the way the whole house will smell on Thursday, just smaller and quieter and right now. They taste like the argument I have with myself every year about choosing between apple and pumpkin—resolved, as always, in favor of both.

Apple Snickerdoodle Scones

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 42 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1 cup peeled, finely diced apple (about 1 medium apple, such as Honeycrisp or Granny Smith)
• 1/2 cup cold heavy cream, plus more for brushing
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Cinnamon Sugar Topping:
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar, cinnamon, and salt until well combined.
3. Cut in the butter. Add the cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter or your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Work quickly so the butter stays cold.
4. Add the apple. Stir in the diced apple, tossing to coat it in the flour mixture.
5. Combine wet ingredients. In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the cold heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract.
6. Bring dough together. Pour the cream mixture over the flour mixture and stir with a fork just until a shaggy dough forms. Do not overmix. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently press it into a cohesive ball, folding a few times if needed.
7. Shape and cut. Pat the dough into a circle about 3/4-inch thick and 8 inches across. Cut into 8 wedges, like a pie. Transfer the wedges to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 1 inch apart.
8. Top with cinnamon sugar. Brush the tops of the scones lightly with heavy cream. In a small bowl, stir together the 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Sprinkle generously over each scone.
9. Bake. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the scones are golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on the pan for 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 240mg