Using my perfected master scone recipe, build your own scones with a variety of add-ins like chocolate chips, berries, or cheese and herbs. These better-than-the-bakery treats are flaky, flavorful, and moist with crisp crumbly edges. There’s a lot of helpful information and step-by-step photos, but feel free to jump right to the recipe!
Scones are sweet or savory, perfect with coffee and tea, welcome at baby showers, bridal showers, brunch, snack time, bake sales, Mother’s Day, and wherever muffins or coffee are appropriate. (All the time!)
But depending on the recipe and technique, scones can be dry and sandpaper-y with flavor comparable to cardboard. They can also over-spread and taste pretty boring. However, boring isn’t in our scone vocabulary!! My basic scone recipe promises uniquely crisp and buttery scones with crumbly corners and a soft, flaky interior.
I have several scone recipes that begin with the same basic formula. Let’s review the fundamentals so you can learn how to make the best scones. Sit back because there’s a lot to cover in this post!
What are Scones?
Depending where you live, the term “scone” differs. English scones are more similar to American biscuits and they’re often topped with butter, jam, or clotted cream. American scones are different, but different isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Today’s scones are sweeter, heavier, and aren’t usually topped with butter because there’s so much butter IN them. Sweetness aside, there’s still room for vanilla icing or a dusting of confectioners’ sugar on top. By the way, here’s my favorite recipe for traditional scones.
Scones are leavened with baking powder, so making them is generally quick. Blueberry scones are my favorite variety, but that quickly switches to pumpkin scones in the fall months! (Here are all my scone recipes.)
No matter which flavor you choose, these scones are:
- Moist & soft inside
- Crumbly on the edges
- Buttery & flaky
- Not sandpapery 🙂
Video Tutorial: Scones
Let’s start with a video tutorial.
Only 7 Ingredients in this Basic Scone Recipe
You only need 7-9 ingredients for my master scone recipe.
- 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. Reduce to about 2 Tablespoons for savory flavors. Brown sugar works too. However, if using brown sugar, whisk it into the wet ingredients to get out all the lumps. For example, see my caramel apple scones.
- Baking Powder: Adds lift.
- Salt: Adds flavor.
- Butter: Besides flour, butter is the main ingredient in scones. It’s responsible for flakiness, flavor, crisp edges, and rise.
- Heavy Cream or Buttermilk: For the best tasting pastries, stick with a thick liquid such as heavy cream or buttermilk. I usually use heavy cream, but if you want a slightly tangy flavor, use buttermilk. Thinner liquids change the flavor and appearance. You’ll be headed down a one way street to dry, bland, and flat scones.
- Egg: Adds flavor, lift, and structure.
- Optional: Vanilla extract adds necessary flavor to sweet scones, but skip it if you’re making savory scones. Depending on the flavor, cinnamon is another go-to ingredient.
And don’t forget about the add-ins! Scroll down to see all my favorite scone flavors.
How to Make Scones from Scratch
So now that you understand which ingredients are best, let’s MAKE SCONES!
- Mix the dry ingredients together. Use a big mixing bowl because you want lots of room for the mixing process.
- Cut in the grated frozen butter. 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. Messy and crumbly is a good thing!
- Whisk the wet ingredients together.
- Mix wet ingredients and dry ingredients. Mix together, then pour out onto the counter.
- Form into a disc and cut into wedges. Wedges are easiest, but you can make 10-12 drop scones like I do with my banana scones.
- Brush with heavy cream or buttermilk. For a golden brown, extra crisp and crumbly exterior, brush with liquid before baking. And for extra crunch, a sprinkle of coarse sugar is always ideal!
- Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. Keep scone dough as cold as possible. To avoid over-spreading, I recommend chilling the shaped scones for at least 15 minutes in the refrigerator before baking. In fact, you can even refrigerate overnight for a quick breakfast in the morning!
- Bake until golden brown. Scones bake in a relatively hot oven for only 20-25 minutes.
Cold Ingredients & Frozen Grated Butter
Keeping scone dough as cold as possible prevents over-spreading. When scones over-spread in the oven, they lose the flaky, moist, and deliciously crumbly texture. In other words, they’re ruined. But the easiest way to avoid disaster is to use cold ingredients like cold heavy cream, egg, and butter.
But frozen grated butter is the real key to success.
Like with pie crust, work the cold butter into the dry ingredients to create crumbs. The butter/flour crumbs melt as the scones bake, releasing steam and creating air pockets. These pockets create a flaky center while keeping the edges crumbly 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.
3 Tricks for Perfect Scones
If you take away anything from this post, let these be it!
- Heavy Cream or Buttermilk: Avoid thinner milks which yield a flatter, less flavorful scone. Canned coconut milk makes a wonderful nondairy option!
- Frozen Grated Butter: See above!
- Refrigerate Before Baking: Remember, cold dough is a successful dough. To avoid over-spreading, I recommend chilling the shaped scones for at least 15 minutes in the refrigerator before baking.
How to prevent flat scones: See #2 and #3. 🙂
How to Freeze Scones
I used to be totally against freezing scone dough. You see, the baking powder is initially activated once wet and if you hold off on baking, the scones won’t rise as much in the oven. However, the decrease in rise is so slight that it doesn’t make a noticeable difference. In fact, you can even shape this scone dough into wedges and refrigerate overnight before baking.
- 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 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. 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.
15+ Scone Flavors
- Blueberry Scones and Chocolate Chip Scones (both pictured)
- Cranberry Orange and Pumpkin Scones
- Banana Scones and Lavender Scones
- Raspberry Almond Buttermilk Scones
- Lemon Blueberry Scones and Sprinkle Scones
- Caramel Apple and Cinnamon Chip Scones
- Triple Chocolate Scones – they taste like brownies!
- Strawberry Lemon Poppy Seed Scones
- Ham & Cheese Scones
- Mixed Berry (pictured): Follow recipe below and add fresh or frozen mixed berries. Raspberries and blackberries burst easily, so don’t go overboard on those.
- Cherry Chocolate Chip: Follow recipe below and add 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and 3/4 cup chopped fresh or frozen cherries.
- Fresh Herb: Reduce sugar to 2 Tablespoons, leave out vanilla extract, and add 2 minced garlic cloves, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1/2 cup chopped herbs such as rosemary, parsley, and basil. Additionally, feel free to add 1 cup shredded cheese to the dough and top with sea salt before or after baking!
Using the master recipe below as a starting point, toss in your favorite add-ins like white chocolate chips, toasted pecans, sweetened or unsweetened coconut, dried cranberries, peanut butter chips, etc. If it’s a particularly wet add-in like chopped peaches, blot them with a paper towel before adding to the dough. Top with lemon curd, raspberry sauce, or any of the suggested toppings below. Above all, have fun finding your favorite flavor!
Look At All Of Your Scones!
Feel free to email or share your recipe photos with us on social media. 🙂
PrintHow to Make Perfect Scones
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 8 large or 16 small scones
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Use this basic scone dough for any sweet scone variety. See blog post for a couple savory scone options. Feel free to increase the vanilla extract and/or add other flavor extracts such as lemon extract or coconut extract. 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
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 cup (1 stick; 115g) unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream or buttermilk (plus 2 Tbsp for brushing)
- 1 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1–1.5 cups add-ins such as chocolate chips, berries, nuts, fruit, etc
- optional: coarse sugar for topping
Instructions
- Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder 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 add-ins, then mix together until everything appears moistened.
- To make triangle scones: 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. For smaller scones, press dough into two 5-inch discs and cut each into 8 wedges. To make 10-12 drop scones: Keep mixing dough in the bowl until it comes together. Drop scones, about 1/4 cup of dough each, 3 inches apart on a lined baking sheet. To make mini (petite) scones, see recipe note.
- 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(s). If making mini or drop scones, use 2 baking sheets. After refrigerating, arrange scones 2-3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet(s).
- Bake for 18-26 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and lightly browned on top. Larger scones take closer to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes. Feel free to top with any of the toppings listed in the recipe Note below.
- Leftover 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 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. 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
- Scone Flavors: See blog post above. If adding fruit, use fresh or frozen. If frozen, do not thaw. Peel fruits such as apples, peaches, or pears before chopping. If desired, add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon with the flour. I usually add cinnamon when making chocolate chip scones.
- 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.
- Mini/Petite Scones: To make smaller scones, press dough into two 5-inch discs and cut each into 8 equal wedges. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Optional Toppings: Vanilla icing, salted caramel, lemon icing from this iced lemon pound cake, maple icing from these banana scones, brown butter icing from these pistachio cookies, lemon curd, orange icing from these hot cross buns, raspberry icing from these mini pound cakes, dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
Made afternoon tea for the family as a fun Sunday get together. Everyone praised the scones. I made plain ones and we topped with whipped cream and different types of housemade jams. Will def make again and also freeze uncooked pieces for weekend brunches!! Thanks for a meticulous job on the recipe and description, Sally!! Will check out your site again for sure.
I made this recipe with blueberries and they were amazing. Will definitely visit your site again.
Lee, I tried self-rising flour once, when I’d already promised my husband some scones for breakfast, then realized I had no regular flour. I used 1 tsp of baking powder and just added a little pinch of salt. Turned out fine, not quite as good, but I’d say they were A minus scones, whereas the original recipe makes A plus scones.
I don’t remember if I’ve commented before, but if so, it’s worth saying twice—best scone recipe EVER. I don’t usually have cream or buttermilk on hand, so I sub whole milk thickened with a splash of lemon juice, but other than that, I follow the recipe as written and then get creative with the add-ins. I’ve made ginger pecan scones with citrus glaze, black walnut and raisin scones, cranberry almond scones, blueberry scones, and plain scones with cinnamon & sugar on top…delicious every single time. Foolproof if you follow the steps. Thank you so much!!
Hi Sally,
I love the taste of the blueberry scones! It’s just wonderful! However, I’m having a problem with my dough being very crumbly and hard to work with. I didn’t seem to have this problem with the orange cranberry scones which were SO amazing!
Any thoughts on how to fix a very crumbly dough or is this how it should be?
Thanks kindly!
Jen
Hi Jen, If it seems too dry, add 1-2 more Tablespoons heavy cream in step 3. Enjoy!
Hi Sally I tried the blueberry scones using your receipt and they were yum. I had to change the size to smaller cookie size as the bigger wedges felt a bit uncooked.
I wasn’t able to get heavy cream, where I live. Just had light creams. Is there a way to make cream heavier? Or thicker. I think the lighter cream changed the consistency to softer dough than what showed in your video.
Hi Sally, If i were to refrigerate the dough overnight for baking in the am (to take on an early morning road trip), do i store in the big disk shape, or individually cut already on the baking tray already coated with the heavy cream and sugar?
Hi Sandi, You can cut your dough into wedges and then place them in the refrigerator. Brushing scones with remaining heavy cream and sugar can be done before or after refrigerating, it won’t make a noticable difference either way!
THANK YOU! Love your recipes and videos!
Happy Baking 🙂
Simply the best scones I have ever made! My husband loved them. They disappeared very quickly.
Easy to make and the taste was great. Will be making these for future brunches.
I’d like to use the master scone recipe to make maple scones using maple syrup. The amount of sugar will have to be adjusted to allow for the sweetness of the syrup and the amount of milk may also have to be changed to compensate for the liquidity of the syrup. Can you rework the recipe?
Hi! I haven’t tested anything, but you can certainly try some adjustments. I would slightly reduce the cream to make up for the maple syrup addition. Or you can follow this recipe as written and top with maple icing like I do with the banana scones variation.
Hello Sally – I would like to reduce this recipe to make just half of the scones. Do you think if I just reduce ingredients exactly by half that the scones would be the same?
Also, I prefer using King Arthur’s Measure for Measure gluten free flour. Any thoughts?
Hi Ellen, For a half batch of scones, simply divide each ingredient in half. They also freeze beautifully so you could make a full batch and keep any leftovers in the freezer. We share more details about freezing instructions in the blog post.
We haven’t tested this recipe with gluten free flour but let us know if you do.
For a savory scone, how would you add bacon to the mix? Would that even be possible?
Yes, absolutely!! Chopped bacon would be great! See the list of flavor ideas above and follow the directions for the savory flavors (reducing the sugar and leaving out the vanilla) and use any combination of bacon, cheese, or other add ins you wish.
Awesome, I’m going to try these recipes (I like cheese and also blueberry/lemon).
Sally; I’m curious if you have ever used splenda to replace sugar. I do regularly with banana loaf, replacing at about half the sugar amount and that turns out perfectly. I realize there’s a significant cost difference, but am wondering about the baking differences only.
p.s. I don’t subscribe to any negative health issues related to aspartame, so please don’t message me regarding that issue.
ABSOLUTELY LOVE THESE SCONES!!
Best scones ever! All things considered it’s a pretty simple recipe . I made lemon scones with home made lemon curd. used about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of curd. probably would make my curd a little stronger next time. Everyone raved about them; wanting the recipe!
Great recipe! I grated my cold butter and used buttermilk with add ins: orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Delicious! Bookmarked your site. 🙂
This is my new favorite site. I have baked so many of your recipes and have not been disappointed. I love the video tutorials, it really brings to life your recipes. These scones came out beautiful. Thanks.
Simply terrific
Amazing, with your directions and helpful hints they were perfect! One question, what’s the best way to store scones? Cant wait to try the other flavors, thank you!
Hi Ana, thrilled you enjoyed these scones! Store any leftover scones in an air-tight container or zip-top bag at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Hi Sally,
Thank you for all the amazing recipes over the years! I made your lemon and blueberry layer cake for my mom’s birthday this past week. I have left over ingredients so I thought this would be the perfect recipe to try. Do you think a few tablespoons of lemon juice could be added into the dough for extra lemon flavor?
Hi Sierra, Lemon zest would be a better choice as you wouldn’t have to add extra liquid. See these lemon blueberry scones!
I followed this recipe exactly and the batter came out way too moist and sticky. It also didn’t cumble like it was supposed to after mixing in the frozen grated butter. It was an utter mess to clean. Would not bake this again.
These were amazing!! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
I’d love to make white chocolate cranberry oat scones! Is there a way to add whole rolled oats to the dough? If so, how much, and would I be taking out some of the AP flour?
Hi Mads, I haven’t tested this recipe with oats so I can’t be entirely sure. I would start by adding 1/2 cup of oats to the dough as written with no other changes to the recipe.
Just made these this morning for my work at a senior center breakfast service. They were a hit. I made blueberry and also a chocolate chip one. The blueberry were completely gone. Going to try other breakfast flavors.
Hi Sally, Never thought I could make Scones. I am a 56 year old grandma. from the husband down to the 1 year old grandson, they all like your Scone recipe. This recipe is so good I am making them for the neighborhood now. I have tried your blueberry lemon, and I have made a Brown sugar, walnut one with Espresso chocolate chips, I can’t seem to keep for more than a day, they disappear so fast! I am going on a picnic this weekend, and trying your banana nut one. I will let you know how it turns out! Thank you for sharing your talent!
3rd time with this recipe – no fail! Really good tips on refrigerating the dough and using frozen butter.
Only mod I made is using greek yogurt instead of heavy cream and it’s come out fantastically.
I followed this recipe to a T and the dough was so wet and sticky. When shaping they also came out very flat. The dough didn’t look at all crumbly and nice like yours .
I use this recipe as a basic scone recipe for everything. It is the best I’ve ever used. I’ve done cherry/crystalized ginger/pecan, blueberry/crystalized ginger/pecan, raisin/cherry/almond, cherry/almond paste/almond, blueberry/almond paste/almond, and apricot/almond….all of them have been a hit. I’ve used sour cream, greek yogurt, heavy cream, milk, almond milk, oat milk, and coconut milk…still a hit. Only when I have changed the flours have they been a flop. Not sure why, but I can’t seem to get the same consistency as the original recipe. With the different flavors and milk like substitutes I can get the same consistency as the original scones, so they taste delicious. Anyway, this recipe is a keeper!
Love this recipe, i add less buttermilk so my scone dought is more tick but its so tasty, already made blueberry, cinnamon-apple and Jalapeño-bacon, thank you Sally!! Grettings from México 🙂
Do you notice a difference in taste when using buttermilk vs heavy cream?
The buttermilk version has a little tang, but it’s very slight.
I love this recipe! First time I’ve made scones, and I probably won’t even try another recipe! I’m a fan of cardamom, so used it along with cinnamon. Mixed in dried figs, dates and toasted pecans. Omg! I’m going to experiment with about a 1/4 or 1/3 pecan flour next time(I know better than to mess with a great recipe!).
I love your scone recipe! I’m wondering if you have advice on how I can make them more dense and less soft inside?
I also made your lemon layer cake for the fourth and it was a hit. So delicious! I saw someone added red and blue sprinkles which I plan to do next year
Hi Susan, We would love to help! Replace some (or all) of the heavy cream with plain yogurt. That will create a thicker base and a denser scone.