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 scone recipe.
- 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 Savory 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. 🙂
How 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 (spoon & 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
- Special Tools: Glass Mixing Bowls, Box Grater, Pastry Cutter, Baking Sheet, Silpat Baking Mat, Pastry Brush
- 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.
- 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, maple icing, brown butter icing, lemon curd, orange icing, raspberry icing, dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
Keywords: scones
This is absolutely the best basic scone recipe. I use it all the time and it never fails. Great with add-ins too. It’s fantastic if you shred the cold butter, but I’ve had equal success with simply cutting the butter, freezing it, and then using a hand held dough cutter. Thanks Sally for a great recipe.
I am looking for a donut flavored scone recipe? I have recently started making scones and everyone loves them.
Hi Lindalee, we don’t have a donut flavored scone, but depending on what you’re looking for you may enjoy the maple glaze from on these banana nut scones!
Great recipe, we have made blueberry scones several times using it. One question- I am trying to experiment to cut down on the spreading during baking. I keep my butter cold and the pebbles small in the dough. I measure out with a scale as well. They taste great, but I want them to be less flat and moist, and thicker and more crumbly. I wasn’t sure if there are little adjustments I can make.
Anyway, fantastic recipe, easy to make and they are great warm from the oven!
★★★★★
While I assume a 1300+ comment is hardly necessary, I feel compelled to write about this basic recipe. Since I started baking (all due to Sally and her teaching skills), I have used this recipe to bake raisin, peach, blueberry, raspberry, ham and cheese, plain, feta/dill, and apple scones. My family loves them, there is always a batch in the freezer and I know exactly the ingredients of the scones. (no preservatives)
I look forward to being up early to bake a batch on a weekly basis. Many thanks for providing me with the fun of baking and my family with the enjoyment of freshly baked scones.
★★★★★
Thank you for this kind comment, Michael! We’re so glad you love this scone recipe.
Any suggestions on how to adapt this to make orange scones?
Hi Melissa, we recommend following our cranberry orange scone recipe. Enjoy!
Love the orange scones at Panera Bread. How would I go about making orange scones ?? My son likes chocolate chip ones, how much mini chocolate chips should I add, to make him some chocolate chip scones ??
Hi Cat, we’d follow the recipe for cranberry orange scones and chocolate chip scones. Enjoy!
Your recipes for scones sound great. The best scones I’ve had so far were at a B&B and they were Lemon/Rosemary scones. I don’t see that flavor combination in your list, have you ever tried this ? I don’t know if I would use vanilla though with this combination. Any suggestions ?
Hi Nan, we haven’t tried that combination, but it sounds delicious! Let us know if you try it.
Love love love all the recipes I have made from you!! If freezing before baking should I brush with heavy cream just before baking, or before freezing??
Hi Cheryl, brushing scones with remaining heavy cream and sugar can be done before freezing or before baking, it won’t make a noticeable difference either way!
I want to make almond scones using almond extract. Do I replace the vanilla extract with almond?? I also want to do lemon scones
Hi Nicole, We use almond extract in our raspberry almond scone recipe. For the lemon scones, you can leave the strawberries out of our lemon poppyseed scones – enjoy!
So I keep the vanilla extract and add almond too?
Hi Nicole, in the raspberry almond scone recipe we use a combination of vanilla and almond extracts. If you wanted to follow this master scone recipe, you could use 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. Hope this helps!
I tried making almond scones. I found them too sweet of sugar. I also used 1 tsp vanilla like the raspberry almond recipe called for and 1/2 tsp almond extract. Both pure extracts. I didn’t taste any almond extract flavoring at all, just sweetness from the sugar. However, I do like how moist and crumbly the scones are in this recipe. How can I make them taste less sweet of sugar and more like almond flavoring?
★★
Hi Nicole, reducing the sugar will alter the texture of the scones. If you try it, let us know how it goes.
Would canned coconut milk work? Or oat milk? I never have heavy cream, ugh! But I will go buy some if needed!
Thank you for all of your PERFECT recipes! You’re the reason I love baking!
Hi Sydney, For the best tasting scones, stick with a thick liquid such as heavy cream, or for a slightly tangy flavor you can use buttermilk. Thinner liquids will change the flavor and appearance of the scones. Thank you so much for making and trusting our recipes!
I love these scones so much. They’re probably the best recipe I’ve found so far.
★★★★★
These are sooooo good! My mum thinks they’re a bit crumbly though, am I baking them for too long?
Hi Jess! If the scones seem dry, they may be over-baked. A minute or two less in the oven next time should do the trick.
Hi! I have to make 80 scones for an afternoon tea and I was wondering what would be the best plan of action. Can I make the scones the day before and store them in airtight containers? Or should I make the dough(s) the day before (or weeks before) and freeze them and bake them off the day of? How long do scones stay fresh? Thanks for all your help! I love your baking site and always come here first for new baking projects!
Hi Nia, the scones keep well at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for 5 days, but if you’d really like them to taste fresh, freezing the dough and baking them day of would be a great option!
Thanks for the info! That’s what I’ll do!
Wonderful recipe! Thank you!
★★★★★
Seeing as you have international subscribers, I thought you might have started with most famous version: the Classic English Scone, tall , round and of course, icing- free.
What a wonderful suggestion. For traditional English scones, I usually follow this recipe: https://www.bakefromscratch.com/traditional-english-scones/
It’s my favorite. They’re a big hit every time.
I’ve read different scone recipes using pastry flour. Do you use the same amount as all purpose or more since flour weighs less?
Hi Jackie, we actually recommend sticking with all purpose flour with our recipe. Let us know if you give it a try!
Love this recipe, turn out sooo goodddd everyone love it, crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy in the inside, thanks for sharing this recipe Sally
★★★★★
Was super good. Fluffy and soft interior and a crunchy exterior. I substituted the heavy cream for half Greek yogurt and half milk and turned out really good and tender.
★★★★★
Best scones I have ever made – best I’ve tasted too! Simply added blueberries and brushed top with cream and sugar. Served straight from oven with butter and homemade jam.
Next time I’ll do the icing glaze.
Thank you – now I have the right way to do scones!
★★★★★
I really want to try your recipe for scones, but would like to make key lime scones. What changes would be made for this. How much key lime juice would I use and would that change the amount of buttermilk?
Hi Terrie, to make lime scones, I would replace 2 Tablespoons of the heavy cream with key lime juice, and add 1 Tablespoon fresh key lime zest like we do with lemon when making lemon blueberry scones. You can also use that glaze recipe and replace the lemon juice and key lime juice.
I love this recipe! Best scones I’ve ever eaten. Can I use coconut?
Hi Debra, we haven’t tested a coconut scone, but it sounds fabulous. You can try adding 1 cup shredded coconut to the dough (though it may take some testing because shredded coconut is a drying ingredient), and even use canned coconut milk instead of heavy cream for extra coconut flavor. Let us know if you give it a try!
I was skeptical because of the grating the butter but these scones may be the best I’ve ever had. I will use my food processor to grate the butter next time for a couple of reasons, including that I think it will keep the butter colder if I use something mechanical like that to do the grating versus having my warm hands on the butter for 5 min while I hand grate it. I added frozen blueberries, blackberries and raspberries to mine then put them in the freezer for about 20-30 min to rest while the oven heated. They turned out delicious! Perfectly light inside, crisp on the outside, and delicious all around. Definitely will be making these again!
I just made two batches one with dried cranberries and white chocolate which I used a small scone cutter and a batch of ham and cheese drop scones and they are absolutely delicious thank you for your attention to detail in this recipe.
★★★★★
So easy, great tips, and we made lemon scones with sugar-free lemon powder drink mix and fresh lemon juice/zest to really tart them up. Thank you!
★★★★★
Your scone recipe is the best! I’ve made several variations, now I’d like to make some using frozen (thawed?) strawberries and buttermilk. Should I substitute some baking soda for part of the baking powder? Should I use the strawberries frozen or thaw them first? Thanks for your help!
Hi Lise, we’d recommend following this recipe for raspberry almond buttermilk scones. There, you can swap the raspberries for the same amount of frozen (do not thaw) strawberries and you can omit the almond extract if desired. Hope you enjoy them!
Fantastic recipe, though I did have to make one adjustment. Perhaps my oven runs hotter than most, but I have to pull out my large scones at 15 minutes, not the recommended 18-26. Other than that, this recipe is great. I make savory bacon-cheddar ones and just lessen the sugar and add Italian seasoning as well.
Try adding a little onion powder to your next batch you won’t regret it!
I split a batch to make 1/2 sweet and half savory. Both were incredible. I used half the sugar in the base dough and used whole milk. I added some turbinado to the top of the sweet scones and used black raspberries and a sprinkle of cinnamon. For the savory I used blue cheese and rosemary with a pinch of garlic powder. Sally never let’s me down.
★★★★★
Sally, I’ve been baking from your site for a long time. Do you have a recipe for apple cheddar scones or the amount to put into the basic scone recipe?
Hi Judi, sounds delicious! We would try adding 3/4 cup shredded cheese and 3/4 cup chopped apples to this master scones recipe. We would love to hear how it goes if you give it a try!
Do you have a recipe for biscotti? I have copied several of your recipes and they always turn out great, thank you my family loves them
Hi Georgia, we have a few! Vanilla Bean Biscotti, Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti, White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti, Chocolate Dipped Almond Biscotti, and Mocha Chip Biscotti. Let us know if you give any of these a try!
The flavor and texture was excellent.
I separated each scone ane put them back in the oven after 23 minutes to crisp all of the edges.
★★★★★
So far, I’ve made your blueberry scone’s & your cranberry orange scones. They came out perfect on the first try! Thanks to all your specific points!!Both are delicious!!
Thank you!!Everyone loves them!!
★★★★★