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
- 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.
- Raspberry Almond: Follow the recipe below and add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract with the vanilla. After shaping the scones, gently press frozen raspberries into each, using about 1 cup total. (Avoid mixing them into the dough, as they can bleed.) Top the shaped scones with sliced almonds before baking (1/3 cup / 37g total almonds). After baking, drizzle with the raspberry icing from these mini vanilla pound cakes.
- 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.
The scones came out perfectly. That said, the box grader thing was not a great idea. I was excited because I thought it’d be less messy than having to clean a food processor. Unfortunately trying to grate frozen butter takes a lot of hand strength and the butter flew everywhere and was a mess to clean up.
Hi Sally! It was unclear from the recipe if you should separate the scones if you are making the regular sized circle cut into 8 wedges. You mentioned separating them after you talked about making the mini scones so I was unsure which were to be separated. I made regular sized scones and (not so easily) separated them after refrigerating, but then they spread quite a bit when I put them in the oven. What do you recommend? Thank you! And I love your recipes!
Hi Rachel! Yes, make sure you separate the scones 2-3 inches apart on the baking sheets. (see step 7) It sounds like your dough was pretty sticky, so see if lightly flouring your hands is helpful when you separate them. And/or you can try adding 1-2 Tbsp of flour to the dough. More flour helps soak up more moisture so the dough isn’t as sticky. Also, make sure your butter is extra cold. If it’s too warm, the dough will be overly sticky and/or greasy. I hope all of this is helpful!
What about chocolate chip and mocha?
The recipe looks delicious.
Two comments:
1) I made blueberry scones with frozen berries — they came out perfect.
2) I would like to compliment the creators and maintainers of this website. I am a novice baker and the information supplied here is clear, concise, well structured and easy to follow. The explanations of how various ingredient choices affect the result is a very useful addition. This is now my go-to site for recipes and cooking instruction.
I made your scones for my family and they were so easy and delicious I’m baking them again for my neighbors. The dough was slightly crumbly going int the oven and I gently pinched them together and they came out of the oven in great shape. Thanks Sally…
I just finished making these. I followed the master recipe perfectly; weighed the flour, sugar, and cream, froze the butter, refrigerated the dry mix/butter combo and the finished dough for 30 minutes before baking. Before refrigerating I added blueberries, chopped candied ginger, and pecans and I was quite happy with look and feel of the dough. I baked at 380 for about 25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. I had high hopes, but like everything I try to bake with soda, the scones spread out and are flat. I’m sure they will taste great, but it’s disappointing to not get any oven spring and have them look like crispy pancakes. Would love to find out what I did wrong and why they didn’t rise in the oven.
Hi Timbo, thank you so much for trying these scones. Your version/add-ins sound delicious! I’m just seeing your comment/question now so my apologies on the delay responding to you. Did you use baking powder? You mentioned soda, so I’m just asking. Scones shouldn’t have a spring to them like muffins do– they’re dense and crumbly on the exterior. See if adding another 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder helps, as well as adding 2 Tbsp of flour. More flour will help soak up more moisture, which helps prevent the scones from over-spreading.
Hi can I chill the dough before I cut it into triangles to save room in fridge instead of after it’s cut?
Hi Jen, Yes that should be fine! You may wish to chill for a bit longer that way so that the center is chilled. Happy baking!
Awesome recipe ! Pulsed it in the foodprocessor with cold butter cut in small blocks, was short on time and did not refrigerate the dough, have not made scones for years and my family loved it. The result was perfect with very little spreading. Big thumbs up !
Important note here, you say “reduce it 2 tablespoons” but it should be that you reduce it *to* 2 tablespoons. Important distinction!
I use this recipe for my scones at the farmers market. A few changes: always use frozen fruit, reduce the liquid to 90 grams , use 1/2 & 1/2 instead of butter milk if don’t want buttermilk taste. Also double sheet when I bake otherwise bottom gets too dark before top bakes. Use food processor for dry ingredients and cutting in butter. Pulse a few times so still pieces of butter visible. Dump into fruit and then mix in liquid. Don’t knead just bring together. Freeze and then bake day off market
I’m wondering if I can replace the heavy cream with whipping cream (35% MF)? Thanks!
Hi Sharan, Heavy cream and heavy whipping cream contain 36% milk fat and whipping cream (without “heavy” in the title!) is a little lighter with 30% milk fat. They can all be used interchangeably in most recipes!
Make these on a regular basis. Hubby loves. Made for my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids. They love,love,love them. Thanks for the fab recipe.
I have never made scones before but love them. These turned out perfect! I made them with a Granny Smith Apple and used some store bought Ghiradelli caramel sauce to top them. Can’t wait to try all the combinations you suggested.
These scones were amazing!!! Easy to follow recipe, especially with watching the video. I made plain and blueberry. So delicious! I can’t wait to make more with using other types of fruit. Thank you and my family thanks you!
Excellent. I used little or no sugar and they turned out fine.
I made these scones tonight and they taste good but are more cakey than I’m used to a scone being. Was my dough too wet or are these more of a cakey scone recipe? Thank you for sharing because either way they are delicious!!
Hi Elaina! These scones should be buttery and flaky, more dense than cakey. If your dough is too sticky, add a little more flour next time. Thank you so much for giving these scones a try!
Hi Sally, thank you so much for your recipe. I have made the blueberry and cranberry orange scones and they both were a hit with my family! We go through the 8 scones so fast so I wanted to ask – can I double this recipe or would this somehow alter the dough/outcome? Thank you!
awesome recipe. never made scones before and they came out near perfect. thank you
Best scones I’ve ever made.
Instead of heavy cream I used Nestle Quark.
Has anyone made this dough in a food processor?
I’ve made this recipe on several occasions and received kudos. It’s very loose and I tried to resist adding anything and formed it as well as possible and INDEFINITELY chilled the wedges before baking.
Thanks for your wonderful recipes.
The scones were delicious! I made mine with blueberries and they were amazing. I definitely recommend this recipe.
My dough is so dry! Wet ingredients do not seem to be enough. Your video dough was much more moist and easy to work with. I was trying not to handle it too much. Dry and falling apart. Followed instructions exactly.
Gail, I just made similar scones from a recipe of a master baker but the recipe called for 1&3/4 cups of flour, 1 cup of cream and 2 eggs. This will give you the moisture you need for perfect scones.
This has turned into my go-to scone recipe! It very unfussy and they have turned out so well each time.
The texture was nice and it is yummy but the problem is i can taste the baking powder… i tried it twice and i could taste the baking powder… any idea how to fix it? Aside from that everything else is great!
me and my family absolutely love them they are super delicious when we make them we always add cranberry’s and they are delicious :D.
I feel like there isn’t enough liquid to moisten the flour which led to the dough falling apart. I wasn’t able to work the dough into a ball then the disc. I was also afraid to overwork the dough so maybe you can add the number of minutes that is considered acceptable before the dough starts being “overworked”?? In the end it tasted really good, much better than how it looked. The texture wasn’t as crumbly as I’d like though. It was almost bread like texture. What did I do wrong?
Hi, Sally! I’ve made your delicious scones numerous times in numerous flavors and they are awesome! I want to do some holiday-inspired scones, and I’m thinking about gingerbread. I was thinking about adding in gingerbread spices and some molasses, but I’m not sure how much molasses or how to adjust the sugar and/or butter to accommodate the addition of molasses. Any ideas?
Hi Jamie! So glad you are enjoying the scone recipe. You can definitely add some spices like ground cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. For the molasses, try reducing the heavy cream and sugar to 1/4 cup each and adding 1/4 cup of molasses. I haven’t tested this, so I’m unsure of the exact results.
Made exactly as described with blueberries and cinnamon. Kept dough cold. Used heavy cream as the liquid and brushed them with it prior to baking. Sprinkled with a little coarse (brown) sugar as suggested. Baking time 21 minutes. Came out perfectly. Best scone recipe I’ve made. Opted not to ice or glaze them as they were perfect as they came out of the oven. Highly recommend this recipe.
I have never baked scones before and these are incredible!
My husband thought they were from Panera! Super easy too.
I’m not sure why everyone is having burning issues… I bake mine at 400 for 21 minutes using parchment paper and they turn out perfectly…. maybe test your ovens with an oven thermometer and see if what you setting it at, agrees with what the thermometer says… your ovens could just be too hot…