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.
This recipe looks wonderful! Excited to try. Is it possible to use bread flour? Thank you in advance!
Hi Erika, you can certainly try bread flour in this recipe. The scones may taste chewy and a little more dense. All-purpose flour is best.
Made these this morning with Oregon Strawberries, in season… and they were uhhhmazing!! I omitted poppyseeds, but otherwise followed exactly and voila… yummy! I made your strawberry shortcake recipe last night and those were amazing too! Pretty much anything from your blog is spot on and delicious.
Any ideas for making a peanut butter scone? Same as master scone recipe and perhaps just a cup of chunk peanut butter and half a cup of semi-sweet choc chips? Add a lil more flour if too wet?
Thanks for all the amazing recipes!
Hi Nance! Thank you so much for the kind and positive feedback. We haven’t tested a recipe for peanut butter scones and it would take some additional recipe testing for us to give you a confident answer. Let us know if you try anything!
Your recipe sounds delightful. Do you bake scones on the upper third rack ?
Hi David! We suggest the middle or bottom third (if your oven tends to run a bit hot).
I’ve other recipes which were good, but this is simply perfect. My forever recipe.
Made these tonight and they were delicious! A fantastic recipe that you can tweak to suit your own preferences and needs.
I have a lactose intolerant person in my family. To make these dairy-free, I used canned full-fat coconut milk instead of cream, and I used dairy-free “butter”. Still turned out crispy on the edges and light and flaky in the middle!
Another thing I tweaked – I brushed my scones with melted “butter” after taking them out of the oven. This keeps them from getting too dry, and adds a nice salty, buttery flavor to your crispy edges.
I added lavender and earl grey tea for flavor. They were a hit! Can’t wait to try different combinations & additives.
Wow! This Was my first time baking scones and I am so happy with the result! My Victoria Day long weekend will be great with these and some jam and cream. Now that I’ve made the basic, I will try some add-ins. I would say I slightly overcooked them but they are lovely. The only change I made was that I used half yogurt and half milk, as I forgot to buy heavy cream.
Thank you for this lovely scone recipe… Its the best scone I’ve ever made and i love how versatile it is, i love all those flavours.. And thank you for the teaching you’ve included.. As a first time user of Sally’s baking addiction www this ia now my go to for baking and know how.
Cheers
My 11 made these for her online class at school. The recipe was very straightforward and easy to follow. The whole family loves them and said they were the best scones we’ve had! Thanks for the recipe, it’s a keeper 🙂
Hi, in stead of heavy cream or buttermilk can I use (Greek unsweetened 10% fat) yoghurt?
Hi Esther, you can substitute yogurt for a slightly denser scone. (Or substitute just some of the heavy cream/buttermilk for yogurt so you’re not eliminating all of the liquid). Let us know how it goes!
This is definitely my new go-to scone method. I used powdered buttermilk, skipped the vanilla, made drop scones (18 minutes in my oven), coated with a little half and half and sprinkled with turbinado sugar. Easy and very tasty.
Umm… Just tried to grate frozen butter and grated a chunk of skin off of my finger when my hand slipped off the *slippery* as melting butter BUTTER. I guess I’m the dummy for following a dangerous instruction. Two layers of bandaid but there’s still blood dripping in the mixture. Yum.
As with all sharp instruments you have to use care. I did the frozen method and worked a little slowly. I also held the butter with the wrapper as long as possible to keep it colder. I’ve definitely cut myself accidentally with a grater before and it’s super unpleasant. Definitely use caution.
Why not use a Cuisinart to grate the butter. Fast and finger-free. Just an idea. I’m no baker!
In any case, I’m going to try this… i have a recipe from a teahouse in Ireland I want to try but I wanted basics. Thank you Ms. Sally!
Mary
I’m new to baking and I love this recipe – so easy and quick to make.
Are there any clotted cream recipes on this site?
So glad you love these scones. We don’t have a tried and true clotted cream recipe, but let us you know if you find one you love!
Try coating the butter stick in flour before grating. Helps to keep a firmer grip and prevents the butter from clumping too much as it’s grated.
working through these now! I’m stoked to see how they come out!
Having made these quite a few times now, I actually grate the butter when it’s cold (pulled straight out of the fridge, not the freezer), then I throw that grated butter in the freezer. Much easier to grate and gives me the same final product.
Hope this tip helps—I definitely did the same thing the first time I tried grating frozen butter!!! Hope your finger’s ok!
These are a lot of work. I wouldn’t try making them again. I’ll just buy them.
Made the scones, i am getting burnt bottoms
Baked on parchment paper
Any hints
Stove is spot on.
Hi Camille, 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!
I used a heavy dark pan, parchment paper and the drop method. They were perfectly done at 18 minutes. Held together and not burned. The pan can make a difference but perhaps you cooked them for too long for your pan
Also check your oven temp it may say one thing but be a very different temp inside.
I’ve been using this recipe for a few years now with great success using different additions (chocolate chips + walnuts; chocolate chips + dried cherries; blueberries and lemon zest; etc.). Today I used gluten-free flour (used Bob’s red mill 1-to-1) (we’ve newly discovered a wheat allergy in the family) and they were great! Thank you for this recipe!
Grating the butter has been a game changer for me. I’m finding if I grate the butter the night before, it’s easier to get my scones prepared in the AM. I never thought to leave them prepared in the refrigerator over; great idea will have to try that next. Thanks!
Hi there- I saw that these can be frozen but I couldn’t find anything re: how long can they be in the freezer. Can you tell me how far in advance these can be made and frozen?
Hi Dana, scones will freeze well for up to three months. Enjoy!
Hi Sally,
I’ve made these with blueberries and they are AMAZING!!!
Was wondering if I can use almond flour instead of all purpose flour. What are your thoughts?
Hi Vera, unfortunately we don’t recommend it. Almond flour has very different baking properties than all purpose flour and can’t absorb the wet ingredients in the same way. For best taste and texture (and so you don’t waste your time trying to adapt this recipe since it may not work properly), it may be more useful to find a scone recipe that is specifically formulated to use almond flour. Thank you for giving this recipe a try — we’re so glad you loved the blueberry version!
Hi, Sally! Thank you for this amazing recipe. I made two flavours of this so far: chocolate-pecan and apple pie. They both turned out amazing, and the family loved them! I have a question tho, is it possible to make a gluten-free variant of this? I want to give some to my friend, but she has a gluten allergy. I have almond flour, oat flour, and sorghum flour. Will any of these work with the recipe? If so, can I do a 1:1 substitution ratio? Thank you so much!
Hi Jarrel, we haven’t tested a gluten-free version of the scones, but many readers have reported success using 1:1 swaps with gluten-free flours like Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup. If you give anything a try, we’d love to know how it turns out for you. Thanks so much for your positive feedback on this recipe!
Thank you for the response, Lexi! I went on a gluten-free scone experiment/adventure today. For the first batch of scones, I used almond flour with a 1:1 substitution ratio. That made the dough way too wet, and the scones were quite greasy. It also cooked way quicker. For the second batch, I again used almond flour but reduced the amount by 25% (so only 1 1/2 cups) and added 1 1/8 teaspoons of xantham gum as a binding agent. I also lowered the baking temp by 25ºF. This batch turned out so good! I love the hints of almond. For the last batch, I used a Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten-free flour. This yielded the same amazing result as the original recipe. Yum!
Well, this was a fun exercise! Hopefully, I can replicate what I did with the almond flour since I really liked the taste (also hopefully, that wasn’t a beginner’s luck kind of thing). Again, thank you, Lexi and Sally!
Thanks so much for reporting back, Jarrel! It’s great to know what worked well for you, and we’re sure many other bakers will find this helpful, too. Thanks again!
Hello, I’m trying to find out how many calories are in each of these delicious scones. Thank you.
Hi Gail! We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp Glad to hear you enjoy these scones!
DELICIOUS they tasted so great very satisfied.
These are so yummy! I used coconut cream and frozen blueberries – the scones are tasty and fluffy. Used a tad less sugar as well.
I made these this weekend and they came out perfectly, except the bottoms burned well before the bake time was over (like 10 mins before). I had them on parchment and everything. Any thoughts why this might have happened?
Hi Holly, 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!
I’ve encountered this issue also. I put my oven rack in the middle of the oven and use 2 baking sheets nested together. No dark bottoms now
Did this with blueberries, used sweetened condensed milk to brush the tops. They melted into a giant pile of goo in the oven 🙁
I made the recipe and followed instructions and when I put them in the oven they basically melted.
Any idea what I did wrong?
I added chocolate chips to the recipe
Hi Lauren! Did you use heavy cream (thinner liquids can change your results)? Make sure all of your ingredients are very cold. You can even place your bowl of flour in the refrigerator if needed. 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.
Thank you Sally! Your instructions did not fail! I made blackberry scones with blackberry icing following your raspberry icing recipe. Very yummy!
Simply AMAZING. This is the best master scone recipe I have been able to find and the scones come out consistent every time. I have only used this for savory scones so far, but one of the most helpful things for me with this recipe is to watch the video! You really do get a visual of the consistency of each part of the mixing process, which was crucial for me in getting my scones just right. Thank you for sharing such a great recipe!
These are freaking amazing!!! I’ve always hesitated to try scones because I thought they were really hard to make but this recipe was easy…and I gotta say…grated butter is the way to go! I added 1 cup of cinnamon chips and the kids loved it!
Hi Sally! I love your recipes and always trust them. I have two questions about this one:
– Can I grate the frozen butter using a food processor with the grating disc?
– If I would like to make smaller scones (half size), how should I adjust the baking time?
Thank you!
Hi Lena! Yes, you can grate the butter with your food processor. Follow the shaping/baking instructions in this sprinkle scones recipe for mini scones. Enjoy!
My go-to scone recipe. Changed the flavor this time, using your guidance.
Cheddar, minced garlic, black pepper, parsley and a bit of garlic and onion powder. Made them drop style and ended up with 14.
These will be bagged up and “sold” at a benefit yard sale/bake sale.
Most delicious thing I’ve had in a while!
I used dried cherries and candied lemons inside, and added yogurt in addition to the cream. I also put a few teaspoons of lemon juice in. Although I forgot to brush them with the cream and sugar before baking, they turned out absolutely delightful! Very sweet, amazing texture, I just can’t find anything wrong with them!
I would definitely recommend, but if you’re not really a ‘sweet scone’ kinda person, put a bit less sugar in, as they are almost cookies.