These melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip scones are tender and moist with deliciously crumbly edges. If you want to eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, this chocolate chip scone recipe is definitely the answer.
Let’s make chocolate chip scones! Or, as I like to call them, crispy chocolate chip cookies masquerading as scones. I swear, these really do taste like chocolate chip cookies. And if you’re craving brownies, here are my chocolate scones.
Scones are one of my favorite pastries. I use the same master scones recipe for a variety of flavors including blueberry scones, ham and cheese scones, cinnamon scones, and cranberry orange scones. If you find a base recipe you love, why look further? I do the same with my vanilla cupcakes. From that base recipe, I created chai latte cupcakes, confetti cupcakes, and even mimosa cupcakes. Sky’s the limit!
My careful scone formula promises the best flavor and texture. Using a handful of basic ingredients like flour, butter, and sugar, you can create a decadent breakfast pastry comparable to (or even better than!) most bakeries.
These Chocolate Chip Scones Have:
- Dozens of chocolate chips in each bite (like having chocolate chip cookies for breakfast!)
- Sweet crumbly edges
- Crunchy golden brown exterior
- Soft, moist, buttery centers
- Lots of brown sugar flavor
- A snow shower of powdered sugar on top!
Or you could even top with vanilla icing, extra chocolate chips, or a simple chocolate drizzle like I use on these 20 minute chocolate crescents.
How to Make Chocolate Chip Scones
These chocolate chip scones are surprisingly quick and easy. First, mix the dry ingredients together. You need flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Second, cut cold butter into the dry ingredients. You can use a pastry cutter or 2 forks, like we do with pie crust, or your hands. A food processor works too, but it often overworks the scone dough. To avoid overly dense scones, work the dough as little as possible.
Next, whisk the wet ingredients together. You need heavy cream, brown sugar, 1 egg, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the chocolate chips, then gently mix together. Form the dough into a disc on the counter, then cut into 8 wedges. Before baking, brush the scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar. These extras add a bakery-style crunch and beautiful golden sheen. Delicious.
One of my tricks: To obtain a flaky center and a crumbly exterior, keep scone dough as cold as possible. I highly recommend chilling the shaped scones for at least 15 minutes prior to baking. You can even refrigerate overnight for a quick breakfast in the morning!
After that, bake the scones until golden brown.
Frozen Grated Butter
Frozen grated butter is key to chocolate chip scone success. As with pie crust, work cold butter into the dry ingredients. The cold butter coats the flour, which creates tons of flour coated butter crumbs. When the butter/flour crumbs melt as the scones bake, they release steam which creates all the delicious flakiness we love. The exterior becomes crumbly, crunchy, and crisp. Aka the best part about scones.
Refrigerated butter might melt in the dough as you work with it, but frozen butter will hold out until the oven. And the finer the pieces of cold butter, the less the scones spread and the quicker the butter mixes into the dry ingredients. Remember, you don’t want to over-work scone dough.
I recommend grating the frozen butter with a box grater.
The SECRET to Light-Textured Scones
For deliciously flaky and light-textured scones, avoid over-working the dough. My goodness, this is KEY! Use a pastry cutter for the cold butter instead of a food processor. Use your hands to pat the dough into a disc. The dough will be messy and crumbly—don’t worry, that’s a good thing!
Video Tutorial
If you’re interested, I have a 5 minute video demonstrating the scone recipe. I’m making blueberry scones in this video, but the base recipe and process is exactly the same.
How to Freeze Scones
Two options here!
- Freeze Before Baking: Freeze scone dough wedges for 1 hour. Once relatively frozen, layer them in a freezer-friendly bag or container. Bake from frozen, adding a few minutes to the bake time in the recipe below. Or thaw overnight, then bake as directed.
- Freeze After Baking: Freeze the baked and cooled scones before topping with icing or confectioners’ sugar. I usually freeze in a freezer-friendly bag or container. Thaw on the counter or overnight in the refrigerator. Warm in the microwave for 30 seconds or on a baking sheet in a 300°F (149°C) oven for 10 minutes.
Chocolate Chip Scones
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 8 large scones
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These chocolate chip scones are crispy chocolate chip cookies in scone form! They’re buttery and moist with crisp crumbly edges and soft flaky centers. Read through the recipe before beginning. You can skip the chilling for 15 minutes prior to baking, but I highly recommend it to prevent the scones from over-spreading.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for hands and work surface
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream (plus 2 Tbsp for brushing)
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/4 cups (225g) mini chocolate chips*
- optional: coarse sugar for sprinkling on top before baking
- optional: confectioners’ sugar for sifting on top after baking
Instructions
- Whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. Grate the frozen butter using a box grater. Add it to the flour mixture and combine with a pastry cutter, two forks, or your fingers until the mixture comes together in pea-sized crumbs. See video above for a closer look at the texture. Place in the refrigerator or freezer as you mix the wet ingredients together.
- Whisk 1/2 cup heavy cream, brown sugar, the egg, and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the flour mixture, add the chocolate chips, then mix together until everything appears moistened.
- Pour onto the counter and, with floured hands, work dough into a ball as best you can. Dough will be sticky. If it’s too sticky, add a little more flour. If it seems too dry, add 1-2 more Tablespoons heavy cream. Press into an 8-inch disc and, with a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut into 8 wedges.
- Brush scones with remaining heavy cream and for extra crunch, sprinkle with coarse sugar. (You can do this before or after refrigerating in the next step.)
- Place scones on a plate or lined baking sheet (if your fridge has space!) and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400°F (204°C).
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. After refrigerating, arrange scones 2-3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet(s).
- Bake for 22-25 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and lightly browned on top. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes before enjoying. Dust with confectioners’ sugar if desired.
- Leftover scones keep well at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: See blog post above.
- Overnight Instructions: Prepare scones through step 4. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Continue with the recipe the following day.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Box Grater | Pastry Cutter | Whisk | Rubber Spatula | Bench Scraper | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Pastry Brush
- Chocolate Chips: I prefer mini chocolate chips because you get more in every bite! Regular size is just fine, though you may want to increase the amount to 1 and 1/2 cups (270g).
- Over-spreading: Start with very cold scone dough. Expect some spread, but if the scones are over-spreading as they bake, remove from the oven and press back into its triangle shape (or whatever shape) using a rubber spatula.
I wanted to try something different and have recently started finding great recipes on Sally’s Baking Addiction, so I searched for scone recipes and came across the one for Chocolate Chip Scones. Simple ingredients, easy to follow directions and not very time consuming. Although we have not tasted them yet, they look great and the aroma is wonderful! I’m excited to try them with a glass of milk or cup of coffee! Thanks, Sally! You have become my number #1 site when I’m looking for recipes.
Where can I find the updated recipe?
This is the updated recipe! (On this post, above.)
I’ve never made scones before but wanted to try these since the pictures looked so yummy! The batter was a little sticky but I figured that was normal. My big issue was that they turned up overdone in the oven. I only cooked them for the minimum time and at the correct temp. Can someone explain why they didn’t come out nicely? They’re good enough to eat if you’re not picky, but I wouldn’t make these for other people
Hi Isabelle, It is normal for the dough to be sticky! Any chance you are using convection/fan settings on your oven? Either way try turning down the temperature next time and keep an eye on the scones and remove them when they are golden brown on the outside.
I have made this recipe before and loved it Sally, but we are a mile above sea level. Is there any thing is should add, or do I bake it longer ? Thanks!
I made a few adaptations to this recipe but it still came out amazingly. I only had non dairy milk, which made the dough really wet, I have made scones before so I added more flour until I was comfortable with the consistency. I have used the grated butter trick before but I feel like it’s a lot of work for similar results, I cubed the butter and rubbed it into the flour leaving large flakes. When I turned out the dough, I pressed it into a square and folded it like it was rough puff pastry, and I topped the scones with egg wash and brown sugar. They came out so good, perfectly flakey and crispy on the outside.
Made these for Father’s Day as a little treat, so good!
My go-to scone recipe!
Hi Sally, can I use whipping cream instead of heavy cream for this recipe? As that’s about the only thing I can find in the stores currently Will whipping cream result in the same crispy exterior scones? Thanks!
Yes you can. Enjoy!
Hi Sally! Can buttermilk be used in your scone recipes in place of heavy cream? That is what I have on hand right now but I am not sure if it will affect the scones.
Thank you!
Stephanie
You can! I use buttermilk in my Raspberry Almond Buttermilk Scones 🙂
This has been our go-to scone recipe for a couple years…we love them! We found out 2 of my kids have celiac this year and have been slowly testing some of our favorite recipes with GF flour. I’m happy to report that the scones came out DELICIOUS with a cup for cup gluten free flour blend (I used Better Batter). No other changes (except I made them with cinnamon chips and my husband requested a maple glaze, so I used the one from your banana nut scones). So good!
I have tried about 5 different recipes and they all failed. My friend sent me this one, SUCCESS !!!! They are buttery and crumbly. I did grate butter but do you have to? Can I just use a pastry cutter? Will try to make these blueberry scones with my Pre K students (whenever we get back,lol)
Never Made scones before.. omg! Your recipe Sally is amazing. I have my entire family hooked on them. I made them with blueberries. Definitely will be making them again. This time one of my sons wants chocolate scones. Thank you.
Holy moly. These are just delicious! I had previously made these in the regular size for my dad as part of an effort to keep his kitchen stocked with his favorite things to eat after he had surgery this summer. I froze them so he could pull them out and eat them whenever he wanted to one. He now refers to them as my “famous chocolate chip scones” (I give you credit though Sally :)) I didn’t sample them until I made them with my 5 year old this weekend though. She loves to help me bake and thought grating the frozen butter was amazing and hilarious (“Mommy, it looks like cheese but it’s butter!!”) Everyone in my house loved them. All 3 of my kids gobbled them up (and of course my husband and I also devoured them). We made them into mini scones per your instructions in the comments, baked all 16 on one lined cookie sheet for 15 minutes and they were absolutely perfect. Another amazing recipe, Sally! Can’t wait to try different mix ins (and of course make them with chocolate chips again and again). THANK YOU!!
I am in love with the Master Scone recipe. I currently have bags of Raspberry Almond and Blueberry Lemon in my freezer to be baked on a rainy day (probably tomorrow). I’m wondering if you have thoughts about adding espresso or coffee to the chocolate chip scones. A coffee shop by my old house used to have mocha chip scones and they were amazing. They had a subtle coffee flavor to the scone and a mocha icing. I’d like to recreate them using your master scone recipe, just not sure where to add either espresso powder or strong coffee. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!
Mocha chip scones sound lovely! I would start by adding espresso powder with the dry ingredients– 2 teaspoons will add lovely flavor. In addition, you could even replace 1 Tablespoon of heavy cream (of the 1/2 cup) with black coffee (make sure it’s cold).
Hey Sally, made these and LOVE them! How long would you bake these if you made each scone half the size? Would love a mini scone recipe!
Happy to help! I make mini scones often. Prepare the dough, cut it in half to make two smaller disks, then cut each disk into 8 mini scones to have 16 mini scones total. The bake time is a couple minutes shorter. You can see my funfetti chip scones for detailed instructions. Enjoy!
Soooooo good! I used buttermilk and threw in some dried cherries and they came out really delicious. I cut them into triangles and froze them. I cook and eat a fresh one every night and they’re moist and tender and taste like the best soft chocolate chip cookie scone. Can’t wait to make more flavors! Now it’s time for my tea and scone… 🙂
Hi! I’d like to put in some dried cherries. Should I alter anything else in the recipe? Looking forward to these!
Hi Jamie, I would keep the totally about of add-ins to 1 and 1/4 cup. You can certainly use some chocolate chips and some dried cherries – Yum!
If I half this recipe, would it scale well? I want to make this recipe but I just don’t want to have too much indulgence or too much leftover!
Hi Magda, You should be able to cut the recipe in half. The trickiest ingredient will be to use half of an egg. I suggest simply cracking one egg in a separate bowl, beating it, and then adding half to the recipe.
I made these scones yesterday. I’m hosting a party at my home this weekend for the kids I teach at my church, so I was going to make them a few different things for breakfast. Well, since they’re kids, I wanted a more kid-friendly scone… nothing too unusual or else those picky kids won’t try it. I was going to try your cinnamon scone recipe, but I was SO disappointed that I couldn’t find cinnamon chips anywhere in my town. SO, I searched your blog for other ideas, and came across this one. I figured a regular chocolate chip scone could be a winner for most picky kids. I made them for my own sons last night to see what they thought. They LOVED them! They said they are their favorite scones. I made mini ones, since at this party, I’m serving a few different things and wanted them to try small portions of everything. I found that baking mini scones (18 of them) from frozen takes about 22 minutes. I LOVE and appreciate all your tips, make-ahead, and freezing instructions. This is one of the main reasons your food blog is one of my favorites. I’m a make-ahead kind of girl, so I appreciate knowing what works, instead of trying to experiment on my own. Thank you for doing what you do, Sally, and being willing to share with the rest of us.
When you make smaller scones, do you have to adjust the baking time? Or is it the same?
Yep! Bake time is slightly shorter if the scones are smaller.
Do you brush with the heavy cream prior to freezing for 15 minutes?
Hi Donna, You want to refrigerate for 15 minutes in step 5 and brushing the scones with remaining heavy cream can be done either before or after this step. I usually do it before I refrigerate them but I’ve tested it both ways and there isn’t a difference in the outcome!
Sally! You did it again… these scones were DELICIOUS! It was a challenge blending the dough together with the pastry blender and getting the right consistency before rolling it out; however, with the help of my boyfriend and the wonderful OXO scraper, we were able to make it work. Thank you for this tasty, buttery, and crumbly treat. You’re the bomb!
I had never been a fan of scones before but Oh. My. Goodness. I can’t believe I was able to make something this delicious. I love your recipes and how much work and detail you put into them so people who are originally clueless like me can feel comfortable stepping out of their comfort zones. Thank you so much! These scones we’re heaven in my mouth!
Hi Sally!
I made these this past weekend and they were a big hit. The only issue I had was that the dough was still dry after mixing in the wet ingredients. I added some extra heavy cream to make sure everything mixed properly, but was wondering what you’d recommend for when I make another batch. Thanks so much!
Hi there! Is it okay to use light cream instead of heavy cream?
Hi Erika! That would be fine.
I have made many of your recipes and so far loved each one! If I’m looking up a specific dish and I see it is from you, I choose that one. I made these scones for church coffee and goodies before and after service, and they went fast! How I have to make more because my family was upset I didnt keep any at home! Haha! Thanks for being awesome!
I made these tonight and followed the recipe exactly and they are just delicious! I love the addition of the cinnamon.. and the brown sugar gives them a taste reminiscent of a chocolate chip cookie. They are light and fluffy and absolutely perfect!! I will keep this recipe forever and use the proportions for all my scones from now on.