Coffee Cake Scones

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Things got really existential over the course of developing a recipe for these scones. It started off with questions about the ideal shape (round or square? baked in a pan or freestanding?), devolved into the differences between American and British scones, and finally ended with the most important question of all time: What even is a scone?

This. This is our ideal scone right now. Tender and tangy from sour cream, but not so rich that a pat of butter would be amiss should one want it. Cutting into lopsided triangles yields the best edge-to-inside ratio. And once we figured out a base we were really happy with, we decided it simply wasn’t enough. Why leave a good scone alone when you can catapult it into its own hall of fame? A ribbon of cinnamon sugar and topper of crunchy streusel—both borrowed from coffee cake, another baked good classically paired with a hot beverage—made these an instant staff favorite.