Preheat your oven to 425ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and kosher salt. Add the cubed butter and cut into the flour using a pastry blender. Alternatively, you can toss the butter into the flour and pinch the butter cubes into slivers with your fingers.

Stir the vanilla bean paste into the half and half and carefully add the mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients (you can hold back the last tablespoon of milk to see how much liquid your flour will absorb). Stir with a spatula but be careful not to handle too much. Depending on your flour, you may need to add more liquid. Some dry patches of dough is okay and you don't want a wet dough. If you need to add more liquid, add one tablespoon at a time.

When the dough is mostly coming together, turn it out on a floured surface. Press and pat it into a square and fold in thirds using a bench scraper to lift one side of the dough and press it onto the top. Press down again and fold in thirds again. Lightly pat down into a roughly nine by six inch rectangle. Use a bench scraper or knife to divide the dough in half lengthwise and each half in thirds. You should have six squares. Divide each square in half to get 12 wedges about two inches long and 1/2 – 3/4 inch in height.

You can brush the tops with milk before baking for more golden scones (or if you're not planning to use the glaze. See note below). Otherwise, transfer each wedge onto the parchment-lined baking sheet and bake the scones for 13-14 minutes or until they're puffed and lightly colored at the edges.

Allow the scones to cool for a few minutes before adding the glaze if using.

Glaze: stir two tablespoons of milk into the powdered sugar along with 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste. If the glaze is too thick, add the last tablespoon of milk.