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!
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 sit tiptoe into a world of pastry perfection.
Since then, I mastered chocolate chip 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.
These Blueberry Scones Have:
- Sweet 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, stick with 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: Use fresh or frozen blueberries. If using 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.
Video Tutorial: Blueberry Scones
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 is tasty too!
More Essential Breakfast Recipes
PrintMy 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 or frozen blueberries (do not thaw)
- 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, 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, 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 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 topping with vanilla icing.
- Leftover iced or un-iced scones keep well at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for 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 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 | Rubber Spatula | Bench Scraper | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Pastry Brush
- 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.
This was my first time making scones. I chose your recipe because of the number of scones it would make. They were delicious. My son and his family loved them.
When “pressing” dough into a disc, a lot of the blueberries were smooshed and now my dough is purple. I didn’t use a lot of pressure, and I’ve made these(sans blueberries) several times with success. The berries are wild, so they’re smaller and more delicate, that’s the only reason i can think of that they quickly “pureed.” Haha Hopefully it won’t change the flavor but do you have any thoughts on how to avoid this in the future? Btw they were frozen, not thawed and tossed in 2tbsp of flour prior to being mixed in.
Hi Brittany! Sounds like it’s just the type of blueberries you’re using are delicate – but they’ll still taste fantastic!
I have tried countless scone recipes and this is my favorite by far. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the first time I baked them, I only had almond milk so I used that instead of the heavy cream. They still tasted good but using cream the next time, they tasted much better. I’m stubborn like that – if I wake up and want scones for breakfast, it’s happening. Anyway, this has become my go-to recipe. I never top them with icing, because they’re great without and who needs the extra sugar?!
I absolutely love these scones! I’ve made these a few times now and still trying to perfect it! The only thing is need to do is flour the berries so they don’t burst when baking. Other than that, my friends and family love it!!
These are the best scones. I make them as often as I can find an excuse for scones. When I type “sc” into my Google search bar one of the first results is this recipe because I look it up so often.
So. Good.
We’re so thrilled that you love this scone recipe, Liz! Thank you for your positive feedback!
Just wondering what is vanilla icing recipe??
Hi Mary, This is our vanilla icing recipe.
I am so disappointed in this recipe. I will not ever make it again- followed it to a tee putting in freezer each time you said. The stickiest dough I have ever worked with in my entire baking career. Needed lots of additional flour – never mind two or three Tb. No way was I going to brush them with more cream to bake. Still sticky when I had enough and tried to put them on the pan. Had to do it in 4 separate pieces and try to pat it together, plus very difficult trying to cut and separate for the pan. Still too sticky. They are in the oven now-5 min to go. It’s now one mass baking that’s how much it spread. I work on a pastry board. I see you mix directly on your smooth counter with very little flour. Didn’t even see any when you dropped the dough down. Any comments?
Hi Laura, this is certainly a sticky dough but shouldn’t be nearly as sticky as you are describing it. What can usually be the issue is over-working the butter into the dough. Make sure the butter is extra cold– frozen & grated is best– so it doesn’t absorb all of the flour. If you ever want to try the recipe again, you can start with just 1/3 cup (80ml) heavy cream instead. Thank you for trying the recipe and for the feedback.
I plan on making these scones tomorrow morning. Will follow your recipe exactly. Most scone recipes I have made say to pat dough into the round shape and cut your 8 scones but keep them together or a tiny space between them allowing them to rise higher and not spread out. What are your thoughts on this?
Hi Laura, If that method has worked for you, you can do that! Chilling the dough for 15 minutes prior to baking them will also help them not spread.
Hello,
This is the first recipe I have tried off of your site. Most of my cookbooks are still boxed from recent move. Had a fierce craving for scones tonight, and had blueberries that needed to be used. I made as directed since I think that is a fair way to assess a recipe!
Delicious! They were more “Cakey” textured inside than flakey scone texture, but the flavor and tenderness of the crumb was excellent. I patted this into a circle that would yield 8 wedges that would fit my lodge cast iron wedge pan perfectly.
I preheated the pan with a little European butter in each wedge.
Quickly placed the wedges in pan, rushed with milk and topped with coarse sugar.
Baked 30 minutes and they were truly perfect!
Used the vanilla topping lightly as I thought they were plenty sweet already.
I look forward to trying these gluten free, and with cranberries, pecan and orange extract/zest
And I also look forward to tripping more of your recipes
THANK YOU!
I should have mentioned that the CRUST on the scones was perfect as made in the preheated cast iron wedge pan. Crunchy heaven paired with the tender cakey interior.
Hi Cindy, We are so glad that you enjoyed these and look forward to hearing how the others turn out!
Absolutely amazing!
I just tried this recipe for the first time, and they came out SO wet with the frozen blueberries – the dough was so wet to the point that it was unworkable. I had to keep adding flour just to get a disk to take shape. Do you have suggestions for if I try this recipe again next time? I froze the butter as well and put things back in the freezer before adding the wet ingredients, so I’m not sure where I went wrong.
Hi Alix, frozen blueberries definitely let off more liquid and can make the dough seem extra wet. You can keep adding flour (about a tablespoon at a time) to help bring the dough together into a workable form. For next time, use an extra gentle hand when adding the blueberries and you can also try coating the frozen blueberries in 2 Tablespoons of flour should help prevent them from bleeding their color and bursting. Thanks for giving these scones a try!
Is there a substitute for heavy cream? thanks very much!
Excellent scones, perfect texture, fantastic taste.Thank you for sharing!
is there a substitute for heavy cream?
We recommend sticking with heavy cream. The thinner your liquid, the more dry, bland, and flat your scones will be.
Your recipe is wonderful! However I was looking for a traditional scone. Dry, crumbly with some moisture. These tasted great but more like cake texture. Thanks!
I followed the recipe exactly, but the scones were burned on the bottom. I’m wondering if it’s because I used a SIPLAT mat instead of parchment paper. Does anyone have any idea if you’re supposed to reduce the temperature when you use the SIPLAT mat?
Hi Kaia, the Silpat sheets shouldn’t be the culprit for the burnt bottoms, but maybe take a look at the cookie sheets/pans that you are using. Dark metal sheets typically over-bake bottoms and thin flimsy cookie sheets = burnt bottoms. You can also try moving your pan to a different position in your oven – away from the heat source, or turning your oven down a bit. Hopefully this helps for next time — thanks so much for giving these scones a try!
Greetings!! This recipe sounds absolutely delicious and I cannot wait to make it but I am wondering if this recipe will work with gluten free flour??? Trying to locate recipes that are yummy and GF. Thanks in advance for any input!
Hi Julie! We haven’t tested this recipe with gluten-free flour so we’re uncertain of the results. If you give anything a try, we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
Well, I made the recipe both ways … regular and with Kings Arthur gluten free flour.. both scones are delicious with an ever-so-slight taste and texture difference. The GF scones are a little drier but experience taught me to add a little more cream to my second batch. I will definitely be making these again! There goes my calorie count for the day!!! Thank you for the recipe!
I have tried many scone recipes over the years, in search of the perfect scone. I have always felt they were tricky to make and have a tendency to be dry. I think the frozen butter and brushing with Heavy Cream, prior to baking make all the difference. These are the best scones I have ever made. My husband even stated they were the best I have ever made. I will definitely be making this recipe again.
Best scone recipe ever! Everyone raves about them. My brother-in-law even requested I make these blueberry scones instead of cake for his birthday this year LOL
This is an excellent recipe. These are the best scones I’ve made. The combination of cream and the frozen/grated butter made a delicious texture and adding the lemon zest to the dry ingredients gave off enough of the scent and hint of lemon. I’ll be making double the recipe of dough and freezing them individually before baking so we can have fresh baked scones regularly. Also think the dough can be used with other fruit/nut combinations well. Thanks so much Sally!
I tried to measure with grams but the flour was not close to two cups. Two cups was closer to 275g. Then had to add more cream as it was to dry. Finally got it patted down and cut, but couldn’t get them off mat to put on baking sheet to sticky. Now they are over cooking on the outside at 14 minutes and middle raw.. what am I doing wrong?
Hi Karla, Thank you for trying this recipe. One cup of flour should be 125g so if you are using weights stick to 250g for the flour measurements here. That should definitely help if you decide to try this again!
The first batch even with my questions turned out so yummy that my husband asked for more. I made a second batch and they turned out great. Love this recipes
Mine taste delicious but spread soooooo bad. Did the frozen butter, refrigerated during the wet process and refrigerated prior to baking. Any additional thoughts?
Hi Daphne! Make sure all of your ingredients are very cold. You can even place your bowl of flour in the refrigerator, as you mention. 15 minutes is the minimum we recommend chilling the dough but you can chill it longer – up to overnight. 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. You can also try adding 2-3 extra Tbsp of flour to the dough as well.
Recipe sounds amazing. Can’t wait to try. Oven temp is 400 degrees; is this regular bake or convection ???? Thanks for your assistance. Karen
Hi Karen, We test and write all of our recipes with a conventional oven. If you use convection settings (fan-forced) for baking, the general rule is to lower your temperature by 25°F. Additionally, keep in mind that due to increased airflow in convection ovens, recipes usually take less time to bake.
I have always thought making scones was a difficult task.
Sally, I can’t thank you enough! The recipe was fantastic! I want to make them everyday! ! ! They are super easy to make, bake perfectly and the taste is delicious!!! I nearly ate all (8) myself!!
I was never a fan of scones. They have always been dry and tasteless. After trying a few homemade ones, I was convinced scones could be great. I came to my go to site, Sally’s Baking Addiction, for this recipe. I am so glad I did. Our family loved it and you have solidified my love for scones. Thank you!
My 1st time ever making scones and they were amazing ! Can I make 16 smaller scones ? I want to share with more people and not sure if the baking time will be different?
Hi Lisa, we’re so happy you had such great success with this scone recipe! We make mini scones often. Prepare the dough, cut it in half to make two smaller discs, then cut each disc into 8 mini scones to have 16 mini scones total. The bake time is a couple minutes shorter. You can see these funfetti chip scones for detailed instructions. Enjoy!
BEST scones I have ever had or made from scratch! Thank you 🙂
Hi Sally, would it be alright to brush scones with whole milk? I will definitely use heavy cream in the scone, but I won’t have enough left to brush once I’m finished, since I am baking a batch for my piano teacher.
Hi Jane, absolutely!
At last I’ve found a scone with the perfect texture — crunchy on the outside and soft and flaky inside. The grated butter made the difference. Next time, however, I’ll omit the cinnamon because it overpowered the blueberry flavor. Other than that, this will be my go-to recipe.
I never liked scones, although my husband loved them. To me, they were always dry & tasteless, & bakeries would charge anywhere from $2.50-4.00 each! I came upon this recipe, watched the video & decided to try it. This recipe has totally transformed me! They’re easy to make & I freeze them before baking & always have them available whenever family or friends visit. I am now a fan of everything Sally makes! I’ll be trying raspberries next time, but all the kudos I receive belong to Sally. I also highly recommend her carrot cake. She’s a true find.
Super yummy!!
I brought down the sugar to 1/4 cup and it didn’t effect the texture much for me. Also when I’m out of heavy cream, I use whole milk or half and half. Delicious scones:)
These scones are amazing! I don’t generally like scones because they are dry, but not these! Grating the butter is genius! Could I use grated butter for your pie crusts? I always seem to have problems cutting in butter to the right consistency, but grating the butter is a game changer.
Hi Beth! You can use frozen butter and grate it for pie dough. However, you’ll still need to cut it in. You can use a fork and mix very well. Glad to hear you enjoyed these scones!
I made these cor co-workers a d they are still talking about them.
I made these yesterday and shared with co-workers and received many compliments. Super easy to make! Will definitely be making more in the future. When they came out of the oven they were delicious, the day after a little dry so I may include more liquid the next time.