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.
Keywords: scones
Novice baker. I have tried this recipe using frozen cranberries several times. Followed exactly, frozen grated butter, in frig for 20 minutes before baking 400 degrees for 25 min. They always taste good but always spread and never get fully browned. They are soft. If you pick one up on the end they would tear in the middle. I wonder if the extra liquid provided by the frozen cranberries is the cause? Should I bake longer?
Hi Matt, are you adding your cranberries in frozen? When using frozen berries, be sure to add them in frozen (not thawed). 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. I’d also recommend using an oven thermometer to be sure your oven temp is accurate. Hope this helps for the next batch!
Thanks for your reply. Yes frozen cranberries straight from the freezer.
Would half and half work in lieu of heavy cream?
Hi Courtney, yes you can use that instead.
Turned out great! First time making scones and they still turned out lovely. I didn’t have heavy cream or buttermilk on hand, but I was able to substitute it with half a stick of just-melted butter mixed with a little over a quarter cup milk, and they still worked out all right.
★★★★★
Yes! What a great idea.
Hi Sally,
Can I use heavy whipping cream as well, or in lieu of buttermilk?
Thank you,
Brenda
Hi Brenda! Heavy whipping cream is perfect here.
Master scone! Love it & grating butter tip!
★★★★★
I’ve been making scone for years. This recipe intrigued me. The biggest challenge was folding the dough together without squishing the blueberries. Any thoughts??
Hi Eric, The blueberries will squish a little bit, that’s just the nature of this recipe. Next time, carefully fold in the blueberries OR make the scone dough without blueberries, cut into triangles, and then press blueberries individually into each scone triangle. This should definitely help!
I used the metric measurements and buttermilk. Unfortunately, the scone dough was far too wet. The flavor was nice but they were nowhere near the right texture.
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Hi
Can I make these smaller? They are morning “treats” for church so I would like to make them smaller without compromising them.
Hi Donna, See recipe notes for details: 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.
I didn’t have cream, so I used a flavoured coffee sweetener (real cream) with hazelnut and mocha. It worked great! Naturally, I omitted the cinnamon and vanilla this time. 🙂
★★★★★
I just finished making these scones today. I added strawberries to the dough and they are delicious. So happy I have found a scone receipe I can make from scratch. Also, found the scone not dry which I had trouble with other receipes.(maybe, just me)
★★★★★
Delicious scones! First time making scones and they turned out great! I followed the recipe precisely (did not have coarse sugar so I just used granulated on top) and I’m glad I did. Kept everything cold and they are so flaky!
★★★★★
My first attempt at scones. After purchasing Savannah Scone Co ones at $3.99 each! I found your recipe and decided to try them! So easy. Thanks also for the video!
★★★★★
This recipe is great! I used mini chocolate chips and brickle pieces. Much easier than I thought it would be. My husband says “Don’t lose this recipe.”
★★★★★
These were hands down the best scones my family and I have ever eaten! They were so light and fluffy and moist. Grating the butter was the key and well worth the work. I kept my shaped dough into 2 discs in the fridge for 4 days then cut into pie shapes before cooking and they came out perfect! Thank you Sally! Oh i didn’t have vanilla so i used a small amount of liquid salted carmel as a substitute.
★★★★★
so easy to follow, i used frozen mixed berries and i think it helped with keeping the dough cold and moist as well
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I enjoy so many recipes here but not this scone recipe. Keeping ingredients cold does not prevent scones from spreading. The proportion of flour to liquid is too much. Although the cookie-like scone tasted great, I’ll not use this recipe again.
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i followed the recipe exactly as written and mine came out perfect. Perhaps you mismeasured the ingredients? I would try again bc these were the better or as good as the best tea shops in England!
Absolutely The Best Scone Recipe! I love scones but usually have to buy from a bakery because my homemade ones are often too flat or dry. With this amazing recipe I can now make the perfect scone. Using frozen butter is brilliant! Thanks!
★★★★★
BEST SCONES EVER!!! I made these for a party and everyone raved. So delicious! I made them small and plain to have with jam. As directed, I added a touch more cream to get the right consistancy. I put my grated butter (GENUIS!) in the freezer while assembling the dry ingredients. Also brilliant is heavy cream instead of buttermilk for sweet scones. Thank you for this awesome recipe!!
★★★★★
Do you think this would work with GF one-to-one flour? Any changes required? Thank you!
Hi Stephanie! 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.
Hi Sally,
Thank you for sharing your recipe. You’re the best. I’d like to try out this recipe and enjoy it with my family. Can I skip the add-ins and make my scones plain?
Hi Linda, absolutely. Hope your family enjoys them!
I really enjoy your videos. They are pretty and sweet.
I always use your recipes and I love them!
I have tried this recipe twice and flopped them the first time (made them too thin). I tried them again today and I made them thicker than last time but they seemed to ‘melt’ and become flat in the oven. Im not sure what Im doing wrong! Any tips? <3 <3
Hi Tash, flat scones are usually a result of warm butter in the dough. Make sure to keep it very cold before baking! Thanks so much for giving these scones a try.
I really like the flavor, but I have the same problem with considerable spread while baking. I even tried freezing the dough for 1 hour before baking (3rd try). The dough was very sticky and I’m wondering if more flour is needed. I used 250 grams, but the video seemed to indicate a less sticky/soft dough. Should more flour be added if fresh/frozen fruit is being added?
Hi Kimiko, It is a stickier dough, but you could try adding just a tablespoon or so more flour if you’re finding the dough to be unworkable (be careful not to add too much, as it could dry out the scones). If using frozen berries, be sure to add them in frozen (not thawed). 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. Hope this helps for the next batch!
I do not bake. I followed this recipe and now I can’t wait to try another one. The scones were the best tasting me and my family ever had. Better than any store bought. I added the cinnamon which I think is the secret ingredient. I had so much fun making this and hope to be as successful with Sally’s other recipes. M&m cookies are next. Thank you
★★★★★
I have been craving scones for a while now but was dreading making them. Thankful to have found your easy to follow recipe & cannot wait to try them! I did strawberry blueberry.
★★★★★
I keep my ingredients very cold, including shredded butter from the freezer, but I have a hard time bringing the dough together. It is so dry. I followed the recipe. Help.
Hi Saundra! How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post. For this batch, try adding a little more heavy cream, 1 Tbs at a time, until the dough comes together.
This recipe is awesome! I substituted whey for the milk that I had leftover from making clotted cream. I added fresh cherries and nectarine. This was my first time making scones and they are SO good. Thank you!
ive made this like three times now, once with blueberries, and two times with chocolate chips and they are big hits. the key is to separate the wedges before baking. a little doughy on the inside is super nice, unlike those crumbly dry scones you usually find… i have used both gluten free bread flour and king Arthur measure for measure gluten free flour with great results.
★★★★★
Never, ever made scones in my life. I recently got into baking after master pizza dough over the pandemic.
Yesterday, the Google doodle was celebrating scones, so I though I’d give it a shot.
Did this recipe and I impressed my wife, who used to make artisanal scose as part of her catering business many years ago.
If the doesn’t tell you everything, I don’t know what does.
Oh, you should check the “bottom” of the scones when baking starting at the 18 minute mark; viewing the top/sides of the baking scone belies the true cook time.
★★★★★
This recipe looks great. I’d like to make key lime scones. How would you suggest doing this?
Hi Veronica, to make lime scones, we 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.
Cool recipe? Yes.
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