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.
Hi Sally!
I’ve made these scones tonight, and followed the recipe exactly. I only had one problem: on certain bites I could taste little balls of baking powder. What did I do wrong?
Thank you for this delicious recipe!
Hi Valentina, we’re so glad to hear you enjoyed our scone recipe. It sounds like your baking powder may have been clumpy. Double check to make sure it’s not expired and that it’s fully incorporated with the dry ingredients. An easy fix for next time!
Hi Sally,
I have been baking these scones for a while now and this is certainly the best scone recipe I’ve found (puts my old one to shame!). I’ve put my own flavor twists on them, in particular cinnamon raisin and orange or lemon cranberry – great all year round options. I’ve always used buttermilk in lieu of the cream and they come out great. I do have a question, though. In a pinch (especially with limited shopping during the pandemic), can I use plain yogurt (not Greek) as an alternative? I have other recipes that give buttermilk and yogurt as equivalent options so I was wondering if that could apply here. The assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Shelly! You could definitely substitute some of the heavy cream/buttermilk for Greek yogurt, but we don’t recommend substituting out ALL the liquid. Would love to hear what you try!
Trina,
Thanks for the reply. I’d like to use regular plain yogurt, which has a similar consistency to a thick buttermilk. Greek yogurt would be much too thick and too tart (as I think you mean when you say substitute only some) – it actually reminds me of sour cream. Does this change your thoughts on the substitution? If so, I’ll let you know how it comes out.
Hi Shelly, if it’s thinner you can certainly give it a try. Would love to hear how it goes!
I tried to make these scones (cinnamon raisin version) using non-fat regular plain yogurt instead of buttermilk (I was out and had some leftover yogurt). The results were great although just a bit more crumbly than my usual recipe but I think it was probably closer to what a scone is supposed to be. I whisked the yogurt first to make it more of a liquid and then added the egg and vanilla to that before adding to the dry mix. I’m not sure if the texture difference was due to the yogurt (less water content than buttermilk) or I usually overwork the butter into the dry ingredients a bit (just a guess). Either way, the results were fine and I would use yogurt again if I needed to. I might try to thin it out with a small bit of water but I don’t think it’s really necessary. I did have enough cream on hand to brush on the scones before baking. One more note – I rehydrate the raisins (or cranberries) in hot water and drain/dry before adding to the dough. This seems to keep the fruit from taking moisture from the dough while baking and making the scones too dry.
Hi Sally! How long can I freeze the scones before baking?
Hi Zoyena, scones will freeze well for up to three months.
Hi Sally! Can I replace the flour with almond flour and the sugar with monk fruit powder? Also, I want to bake these for a small tea party with my sister and cousin so which flavors, add-ins, and toppings would you recommend? There are so many that I just can’t decide! Thanks!
Hi Alishba, we don’t suggest making those substitutions as they will alter the scones too much. We recommend doing a quick google search for a scone recipe that uses the ingredients you want to bake with. Fruity scones with a sweet glaze like lemon blueberry scones would be lovely for a tea party.
Sally, I made the blueberry scones and my family loves it! It was perfect! I have to ask where do you get the music for your video? It really got me all pumped up before baking! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Perfectly delicious. Used full fat canned coconut milk, added frozen cherries and Guittard dark choc chips and sprinkled with sea salt flakes. Oh my!
I’ve always substituted Wheat Flour when making these. I do replace 1 tablespoon with White Flour to help it rise. Then let the batter sit 10 minutes before I shape and put in fridge (can’t recall where I read this helps get air to help baked good not be so heavy but I’ve done it since I started baking with Wheat Flour ♀️). I make a batch of scones using Sally’s recipe and Wheat Flour almost every week with different additions and they’re always EXCELLENT!
This recipe is delicious and easy to prepare. The grated, frozen butter was new to me and made a big difference. The scones were flaky, moist and tender. Second batch in the oven this morning with blueberries. Love the idea of prepping them the night before and popping them in the oven in the morning.
I just made these, and maybe my measurements concerning flour were off. But it seemed like because I used frozen berries the dough mixture was very wet and sticky, resulting in adding quite a bit more flour and needing to fold over quite a few more times. Could have been the quality of said frozen berries too. Just some thought. They still came out delicious! Thanks!
Is this really cakey inside? The dough is sticky
I have been using this recipe for months and I love it!!! I chopped up some bite sized chunks of frozen peaches and added some peach spice to the mixture! Absolutely delicious! My family, who usually don’t like scones, beg me to make these! Thank you!!!
This is a great recipe. After reading everything all the way through I could see why my previous scones were lackluster. I followed directions except instead of grating butter I cubes it up very small and used my grandmothers pastry cutter. Since thicker milk or cream is advised and after pandemic shopping lead to some odd extra items in my pantry I decided to use evaporated milk as I have 4 cans to get through before they expire. I added chopped pecans, orange zest and small chocolate chips. The scones were light moist and a little crumbly. Just Devine. I frosted w maple syrup and powdered sugar glaze but next time I think I’d do OJ and powdered sugar instead. With this recipe and all it’s knowledge I feel like scones might be my new thing!
I used this recipe, and omg, those scones were perfection. I tried it again, but this time I doubled the recipe and added half cup sweetened coconut flakes and one cup dried cherries. I also added an additional half teaspoon more baking powder. It is perfection. This is my new favorite. I find the coconut add another great texture, plus the wife loves it. I thought that coconut and cherries, being dry, might result in a less moist scone, so while prepping, I hydrate the cherries with one tablespoon buttermilk. I will try this again, but increase the coconut to three quarter cup instead. Thank you for this recipe.
Hi Sally, you mention that these scones could be made using coconut milk instead of cream/ buttermilk. Would it be best to use full fat canned coconut milk, or the thinner kind from a carton? Also, do you think other non-dairy milks would work as well, like almond or cashew? Thank you for all your wonderful recipes!
Hi Jill, you can use a nondairy milk, yes. Just keep in mind the lower the fat, the less “rich” your baked goods will taste. If using coconut milk, we recommend full fat canned coconut milk (unsweetened). Happy baking!
Amazing! My first time making scones and this recipe made it fool-proof , so so good.
Sally, All your recipes are amazing! Thanks so much. The scones also turned out wonderful!
I’ve always considered scones to be fairly pointless biscuits, but these did in fact turn out perfect as promised and tasted heavenly. Made the savoury variety, with paprika powder, black pepper, rosemary, and a generous amount of Cheddar. For baking time, about 18 minutes was sufficient; the scones were golden with a brown hint on the edges by then. The recipe is a definite keeper; will be using this again. Thanks a lot!
Hi, I’m retired and new to baking. I made these this morning, turned out great. Recipe was easy to follow. For first time, I didn’t add any extras, just stayed with basic recipe.
Exactly the type of recipe with clear o instructions I have been looking for to make it first time.
Thank you Trina for your quick response! I can’t wait to start baking!
I made these scones today and my whole family was so impressed. They were amazing! Easy to make, tasty and delicious!
These look delicious but I need a gluten free recipe. Do you have any?
We don’t so sorry! Some bakers have had luck with 1:1 gluten free baking flour but we haven’t tested it ourselves.
I made with King Arthur 1 to 1 … was a success ( blueberries, decreased sugar to 1/4 cup)
I made this recipe this morning, and used the King Arthur Measure for Measure flour. I added 1/2 tsp xanthun gum to the recipe, since gf baked goods tend to be crumbly. I also used buttermilk instead of heavy cream, nor did I grate frozen butter – just cold and used my Kitchen Aid, plus made them as drop scones. They were very tasty. The outside was slightly dry (could be my oven), but the inside was moist and a little cakey, but not crumbly. An icing drizzle will compensate for the dry crust. As my oven is convection, I would either decrease the temp or bake time the next time I make these, but this is a solid recipe.
I just made the blueberry scones for the first time and they were delicious and perfect. This recipe is a keeper.
I had no issues with this dough. It is a bit dry, but a bit of kneading brings it together without toughening it. I did find the scones quite sweet, however, even without add-ins. I prefer less sweet, so I can serve with jam. They would be cloyingly sweet if not served plain. I would also recommend keeping an eye on bake times. I made the 8 wedge scones and baked them for only 20 minutes. The bottoms were almost burnt, so if I made again, I would reduce this time to 18 minutes or so, even though recipes notes 25 minute bake time for larger scones. All in all, I don’t find this recipe vastly superior to other scones I’ve made.
I baked it this morning for breakfast.
Great sconce recipe! Although I reduced the amount of sugar from 1/2 cup to 1/3 cup, the taste and the texture of the baked sconce were still perfect.
There will be more breakfasts coming like what I just had.
This recipe came out delicious, I baked it this morning and yielded 8 big pieces, added frozen blue berries and lemon zest, it was moist, but cakey instead of flaky. I baked it for 25 minutes, and should have checked it after 20 min, my oven is new and those ones seem to need less time, so just a watch-out for anyone out there with a new oven. I drizzled with a lemon icing (powder sugar + 1 – 2 tsp of squeezed lemon juice). Will definitely make again. Thank you Sally
Just took them out of the oven and eating first one now. I added chopped dried strawberries and pecans with a lemon glaze over all. Delicious! I cooked 20 minutes which seems about right. But a couple were bigger and they maybe could have stood another minute or two. But I live at over5,000 feet so never sure what the altitude does to cooking time.
I am a newbie in baking. I’m sure that someone already asked to make cones with GF flour but there are over 700 comments here so I don’t know where to start.
So, my question is can I make these delicious scones with GF flour?
Thanks
Hi Kris, we haven’t personally tested this with an alternate flour but have heard from others who tried an all purpose gluten free (1:1) flour with success. Let us know you try it!
I followed this recipe and the scones turned out great. I added blueberry and white chocolate chips. Thank you for this wonderful recipe!
Hi I love all your recipes!!
Can I make lemon ricotta scones using this master recipe? If so, how much ricotta should I add in?
Hi Sara, We have not tested this recipe with ricotta and it would take additional recipe testing for us to give you a confident answer. These are not scones, but you may enjoy our Lemon Ricotta Cookies!
My effort to make this recipe was sparked by not having any desserts in the house and too late to go to the store. I had everything except heavy cream so I used 1/4 cup 2% Greek yogurt and 1/4 cup half and half. I did have to add about 1 tbs more half & half because the dough was a teeny bit dry. They were delicious!