These better-than-the-bakery blueberry scones are bursting with juicy blueberries. They’re buttery and moist with crisp, crumbly edges and soft, flaky centers. Crunchy coarse sugar and creamy vanilla icing are the perfect finishing touches!
I originally published this recipe in 2014 and have since added new photos and a video tutorial.
Scones. You either love them or hate them. I used to fall in the latter category, passing on them in favor of muffins or quick breads. Scones can taste pretty dry, comparable to lackluster triangles of cardboard. No, thanks.
But my opinion on scones took a total 180 a few years ago when I attended a cooking event in the Panera Bread test kitchen. Turns out that I’ve been eating all the wrong scones because when done right, these sweet treats tiptoe into a world of pastry perfection.
Since then, I mastered chocolate chip scones, apple cinnamon scones, ham & cheese scones, cinnamon scones, lavender scones, and strawberry lemon scones. I use the same master scone recipe for each flavor, a formula promising the BEST scone texture. By the way, I wrote an entire post devoted to my favorite base scones recipe. Today we’re making blueberry scones, which is definitely my favorite scone flavor.
There’s no denying these are the best blueberry scones on the planet. Strong statement, right? Trust me.
One reader, Rich, commented: “Sally, I would like to say thank you! These pastries were awesome. I was expecting a dry and pale flavor that I usually get from scones. These blueberry scones absolutely melted in our mouths. I can’t say enough about the recipe. One word for these—AWESOME! I am going to try more of your recipes, and I’m sure I won’t be disappointed. ★★★★★“
These Blueberry Scones Have:
- Crisp, crumbly edges
- Soft, moist centers
- Crunchy golden brown exterior
- Buttery rich flavor
- An overflow of blueberries
- Mega vanilla icing drizzles
Let’s make them!
Blueberry Scone Ingredients
Nothing but basic ingredients coming together to produce something extraordinary. 🙂
- Flour: 2 cups of all-purpose flour is my standard amount, but set extra aside for the work surface and your hands.
- Sugar: I stick with around 1/2 cup of sugar for this scone dough. Feel free to slightly decrease, but keep in mind that the scone flavor and texture will slightly change.
- Baking Powder: Adds lift.
- Salt, Cinnamon, & Vanilla Extract: Add flavor.
- Cold Butter: Besides flour, cold butter is the main ingredient in blueberry scones. It adds flavor, flakiness, crisp edges, and rise. More on butter below!
- Heavy Cream: For the best-tasting pastries, use a thick liquid such as heavy cream. Buttermilk works too! For a nondairy option, try using full-fat canned coconut milk. Avoid thinner liquids such as milk or almond milk—you’ll be headed down a one-way street to dry, bland, and flat scones.
- Egg: Adds flavor, lift, and structure.
- Blueberries: For best results, use fresh blueberries. If you must use frozen, do not thaw.
Before baking, brush the scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar. These extras add a bakery-style crunch and beautiful golden sheen. Highly recommended!
Frozen Grated Butter
Frozen grated butter is key to blueberry scone success.
Like with pie crust, work the cold butter into the dry ingredients. The cold butter coats the flour. When the butter/flour crumbs melt as the scones bake, they release steam and pockets of air. These pockets add a flaky center, while keeping the edges crumbly, crunchy, and crisp. 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.
How to Make Blueberry Scones
Blueberry scones are a quick and easy breakfast pastry recipe. Since there’s no yeast, they go from the mixing bowl to the oven relatively quickly. First, mix the dry ingredients together. You need flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Second, cut cold butter into the dry ingredients. You can use a pastry cutter, 2 forks, 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, 1 egg, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the blueberries, then gently mix together. Form the dough into a disc on the counter, then cut into 8 wedges.
One of my tricks: To obtain a flaky center and a crumbly exterior, scone dough must remain cold. Cold dough won’t over-spread, either. Therefore, I highly recommend you chill 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.
The scones are fantastic warm out of the oven, but taste even better with a drizzle of vanilla icing on top. The icing is totally optional, but you should never pass up the chance to accessorize! It seeps down into the cracks and crevices, adding even more sweet flavor. A dusting of confectioners’ sugar or pat of homemade honey butter is tasty, too!
More Essential Breakfast Recipes
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My Favorite Blueberry 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 better-than-the-bakery blueberry scones are bursting with juicy blueberries. 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
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 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 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 heaping cup (140g) fresh blueberries
- for topping: coarse sugar and vanilla icing
Instructions
- Whisk flour, sugar, 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, 2 forks, or your fingers until the mixture comes together in pea-sized crumbs. See video 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, the egg, and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the flour mixture, add the blueberries, then mix together until everything appears moistened.
- Pour onto the counter and, with floured hands, work the 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.
- 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 topping with vanilla icing.
- Leftover iced or un-iced scones keep well at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Freeze Before Baking: Freeze scone dough wedges on a plate or baking sheet for 1 hour. Once relatively frozen, you can layer them in a freezer-friendly bag or container. Bake from frozen, adding a few minutes to the bake time. Or thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then bake as directed.
- Freeze After Baking: Freeze the baked and cooled scones before topping with icing. I usually freeze in a freezer-friendly bag or container. To thaw, leave out on the counter for a few hours 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.
- 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 | Silicone Spatula | Bench Scraper | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Pastry Brush
- Blueberries: For best results, use fresh blueberries. If you must use frozen, do not thaw.
- 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 use a spatula to press back into shape, then return to the oven to finish baking.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Fantastic!! Just the perfect amount of sweet and exactly the perfect crumbly texture I love. Never purchasing scones from the store again.
Took shortcuts and mixed the dry, fluid and blueberries in KitchenAid. Not recommended – lost some texture and whole dough became violet. Also, 25 minutes in my oven turned out a bit too long. Despite those beginner mistakes the scones were really, really good. Skipped the icing. Will definitely keep doing them 🙂
I’ve made these before and they turned out perfect. Today, I followed the recipe but they all ran together and came out flat, like cookies. What went wrong?
Hi Jeanine, If you notice them spreading no matter what you try to do, add a little more flour when you make them again. Even an extra 1/4 cup will definitely help!
Made these this morning instead of my traditional first day of school blueberry muffins… and they were a hit. Next time I think I may substitute lemon zest for the cinnamon but nonetheless the texture and flavor were excellent. Thank you!!
I never send a review, but had to on this one.
This Scone recipe is outstanding! This is the best scone I have ever tasted!
Great recipe. Easy to follow instructions. A must try!
I will make these to accompany a cup of French Press Coffee for a great weekend treat.
These scones are amazing! I substituted unsweetened coconut cream for heavy cream and they baked beautifully. I also added some lemon juice to the vanilla icing. What a treat! Thanks so much for posting 🙂
I love the flavor combination of blueberry and lemon. I substituted the cinnamon with 2 tablespoons of lemon zest and the vanilla with lemon juice. I also refrigerated my pastry marble so when I worked the dough into the round, it stayed cold. They baked up wonderful and were a big hit at a breakfast meeting.
I made these with toasted sugar and they’re awesome!
i added a tablespoon more of cinnamon love it
Can you substitute half and half for the heavy cream?
Hi Kim, For the best tasting pastries, stick with a thick liquid such as heavy cream. The thinner your liquid the more dry, bland, and flat your scones will be.
Hi Sally
I been making your blueberries scones for bake sale and our own enjoyment! However my blueberries scones always end up soggy because of the moisture from the berries , other scones without berries are perfect !
How do I fix that !?? Thank you !
Hi Nicole, a little extra flour will definitely help. Add about another 1/4 cup of flour. You can also lower the oven temperature and bake the scones for a little longer to ensure they bake a little more evenly on the inside. Perhaps to 375°F (191°C).
Thank you for your prompt reply and I just tried it again today! With more flour and baked for 30mins! No more soggy berries scones!!
I made these scones for breakfast this morning and they were just perfect and bursting with flavour. I used buttermilk instead of cream. This was my first attempt at scones and needless to say am overjoyed with the results.
Love these but can’t seem to form the dough without squishing the blueberries! What am I doing wrong? I tried adding them later after it was mostly together but then they weren’t evenly distributed. Help!
Hi Jen, thanks for giving this recipe a try! The blueberries will squish a little bit, that’s just the nature of this recipe. Next time, carefully fold in the blueberries OR make the scone dough without blueberries, cut into triangles, and then press blueberries individually into each scone triangle. This should definitely help!
First time making scones! Made it 2x since and my family loves it! I left out the icing since its perfect with the course sugar topping. Amazing!
I’m a 79 year-old male who has never baked but I wanted to try something new. I followed your recipe exactly (I don’t know enough to change anything). These scones are the best baked goods I have EVER had. O.M.G. they are amazing!
I love this recipe and the tips about spreading and cold butter. I can also use that cold treatment for my chocolate chip cookies. Some people like them flat and now I know exactly what to do for that effect. I put my cookie dough in the refrigerator at night when it’s too late to bake but didn’t realize the effects until reading one of your comments. For the scones I doubled the recipe but put half of the mixture in the refrigerator until I had the first half taken care of and on the baking mat. I’m going to try your cinnamon rolls next.
This recipe was soooo good! I have never made scones before but this recipe was easy to follow. I substituted coconut milk for the heavy cream and it turned out perfect! Will definitely be adding to my “Make Again” folder!
I made these scones over the weekend – followed the recipe exactly (used full fat coconut milk). They were (past tense because they are long gone) amazing. Going to bake again this weekend, but substitute fresh cherries. Thank you so much!
This was my first attempt at scones and your recipe is amazing!! They were sooo good. I followed it to a T (except I added some dried blueberries in with the fresh ones).
Question: Could you substitute maple syrup for the sugar? I want to make a batch for someone who can’t eat refined sugar…
Hi Ruth, I’m so happy you enjoyed these scones! You can use brown sugar instead of white granulated sugar in this recipe, but I don’t recommend using pure maple syrup. That will change the consistency and requires additional recipe testing.
Fabulous!
I made these blueberry scones and they were marvelous. This is the first recipe that I have baked from scratch in a great many years, so I was concerned that it would not come out. My husband loved them as did I. I will definitely follow you from now on and try this recipe again.
I used bilberries and substituted yogurt for cream and the results were delicious.
Thank you
Yummy blueberry season is here. Great recipe
These were perfect! I am not a big fan of scones typically, but my daughter was asking for some. After baking these, I have gained a new appreciation for scones. I am baking a second batch tonight. I will be making them smaller, and only icing half because they are so yum even without the icing.
Hi Sally! I love this recipe but need to make a bunch and was wondering if I could cut these into smaller scones? I don’t think it would cause an issue other than possibly a shorter baking time but wanted to see if you had any suggestions before diving into it! Thank you
Hi Brittany, You can press the dough into two 5-inch discs and cut each into 8 equal wedges. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned. You can see how we made Funfetti Chip Scones mini size!
I’ve been baking scones for years. Decided to try a new recipe and these are AMAZING. I did skip the extra chilling. Light and flaky.
Hey Sally,
I didn’t have any troubles here. I made this delectable dish with my sister. It was our first time making scones and after scrolling through different recipes this is the one that stuck out to me. The recipe was simple and turned out great! 5 stars in my book. Thanks for the fabulous recipe which I would 100% recommend.
I bake quite a bit including lots of different pies. This is a great recipe. Easy to follow, the scones are so light, moist and the top is crunchy Much better than scones I have purchased in the store or a bakery. I will definitely look for more of your recipes. Thanks.
Linda Arentowicz
New Jersey
My teenager had scones for the first time while we were visiting a friend. He’s been pestering me ever since to bake some. I finally did tonight. They were great! Better than the bakery ones my friend had!
I followed the recipe exactly and it worked. The dough was sticky, but quite manageable with flour on the counter and on my hands.
Absolutely delicious. So moist and tasty. I doubled up on the Blueberries and added zest of an orange and a tiny bit of almond extract. The best recipe!
I have not completed this recipe because my blueberries keep popping and it ruins the dough do you have any tips? I’m sure this recipe is very good.
Hi Kinsey, be as gentle as possible when working the blueberries into the dough. As an alternative, you can shape the scones then individually press blueberries into each shaped scone before baking.