Want to eat brownies for breakfast? Here’s the acceptable solution! These melt-in-your-mouth chocolate scones are rich and moist inside with deliciously crumbly edges. Dunk in a glistening glaze coating, then top with a drizzle of chocolate.
We call these Triple Chocolate Scones Supreme because that’s exactly what they are: supremely chocolatey. These are brownies masquerading as scones. And your kitchen will smell like fresh-baked brownies for the rest of the day.
These Chocolates Scones Are:
- Crumbly on the edges
- Soft, moist, and dense in the centers
- Filled with melty chocolate
- Topped with glaze, then more chocolate
- Literally brownies for breakfast
Behind the Recipe
We use my favorite basic scones recipe as the starting point. To make them chocolate, we swap out some flour for unsweetened cocoa powder. Since cocoa powder typically dries out baked goods, we add a little extra liquid. (In this case, heavy cream.) Lastly, we add a generous handful of semi-sweet chocolate chunks to the scone dough, then finished the scones with glaze and a chocolate drizzle.
Overview: How to Make Chocolate Scones
These chocolate scones are surprisingly easy. First, mix the dry ingredients together. You need flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Second, cut cold butter into the dry ingredients. You can use a pastry cutter, 2 forks, 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.
Next, whisk the wet ingredients together. You need heavy cream, 1 egg, and vanilla extract. These are go-to wet ingredients in scones. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add some chocolate chips or chunks, then gently mix together. Form the dough into a disc, then cut into 8 wedges.
One of our tricks: To obtain a flaky center and a crumbly exterior, keep scone dough as cold as possible. We highly recommend chilling the shaped scones for at least 15 minutes prior to baking. You can even refrigerate overnight for a quick breakfast in the morning!
After that, bake the scones before glazing.
Frozen Grated Butter
Frozen grated butter is key to scone success and you’ll see me use it again in these ham & cheese scones. Like with pie crust, you will work cold butter into the dry ingredients. The cold butter coats the flour, which creates tons of flour coated butter crumbs. When the butter/flour crumbs melt as the scones bake, they release steam which creates all the delicious scone flakiness we love. The exterior becomes crumbly, crunchy, 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.
We recommend grating the frozen butter with a box grater.
Prevent Dry Scones with This Glaze
We add a glaze coating to my chocolate scones. Why? We find that chocolate scones can dry out pretty quickly. And in our recipe testing, we found that the best remedy for this is to coat them in a very thin, very simple glaze made from water, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla. We do not use milk because it makes the glaze a little too thick. We were looking for a clear glaze.
Give the scones a quick dunk in the glistening glaze while they’re warm. The glaze will set on the scones as they cool. And if you’re REALLY in the mood for chocolate, don’t forget about the melted chocolate drizzle on top. You could even finish them off with salted caramel, too!
These brownie-like scones are crumbly on the edges, moist in the centers, and exploding with chocolate. The bites with the melted semi-sweet chocolate chunks inside are the best.
Even More Chocolate Recipes:
- Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding
- Chocolate Croissants (Pain au Chocolat)
- Chocolate Truffles
- Chocolate Cupcakes & Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
- Chocolate Lava Cakes
Triple Chocolate Scones
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 8 large scones
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Basically brownies pretending to be scones! 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
- 1 and 2/3 cups (209g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1/3 cup (27g) unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or dutch process)
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (115g) unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon (135ml) heavy cream
- 1 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
Glaze & Topping
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) water (black coffee works too!)
- one 4 ounce bar semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
Instructions
- Whisk flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt 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. Place in the refrigerator or freezer as you mix the wet ingredients together.
- Whisk heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the flour mixture, add the 6 ounces of chopped chocolate, then mix together until everything appears moistened.
- 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.
- 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. After refrigerating, arrange scones 2-3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet(s).
- Bake for 22-25 minutes or until edges and top are set. Chocolate scones are done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes as you prepare the glaze.
- Make the glaze: Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and water together. Dunk warm scones into the glaze and place on a wire rack with a baking sheet or paper towels underneath to catch the glaze as it drips down. The glaze will set after several minutes, but you can serve right away. Before serving, melt the 4 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave in 15 second increments, stirring after each increment until melted. Drizzle over scones.
- Leftover glazed or un-glazed scones keep well at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Notes
- Special Tools: 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. Or thaw overnight, then bake as directed.
- Freeze After Baking: Freeze the baked and cooled scones before topping with glaze and chocolate drizzle. 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. Before serving, top with glaze and chocolate drizzle.
- Overnight Instructions: Prepare scones through step 3. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Continue with the recipe the following day.
- 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.
- Chocolate: Use baking chocolate sold as 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle, such as Ghirardelli or Baker’s brand. 1 heaping cup semi-sweet chocolate chips may be substituted for the chopped chocolate in the scones. Chocolate chips are a little tricky to melt into a pourable consistency, so I recommend sticking with the chocolate bar for the drizzle on top. The drizzle is optional.
Keywords: chocolate scones
Can this recipe be doubled?
Hi Kate, for best results, we’d recommend making two separate batches rather than doubling. That prevents over- or under-mixing the added volume.
This is only my third time making scones and these are my favorite. Like eating brownies! I didn’t even use a glaze or icing. They are nice and moist with a crispy edge.
Can I skip the cinnamon for these and your chocolate chip scones?
★★★★★
Hi Amy, you can leave out the cinnamon if you prefer.
Is there a way to grate the last one inch of frozen butter without scraping nails/skin?
I was unable to ‘dunk’ the scones in the glaze as they started to break apart, so I just poured the glaze over the top (so sides & bottom weren’t covered). The scones are delicious but it was time consuming (over 2 hours from start to finish) to make. Thanks for any help you can give me on my questions.
★★★★
Hi Susan, We are glad you enjoyed the scones! You can try using a fork to hold that last little bit of butter to grate it, or if it gets very small and even a fork won’t work, you can finely chop that last little bit with a knife. I hope this helps!
Froze mine for 15 mins and they are beautifully risen. Quite tall!
Read through the recipe, I used chocolate chips and they do not drizzle. Had to make more.
Great recipe!
★★★★★
Hi Sally,
Thank you for all the tips and recipes about scones! I am baking these for christmas and would like to pack them as gifts. The thing is, is the choc drizzle the harden type or will go mushy in the plastic wrap if i make them a day ahead.
I really hope you will read my message!!Thx!
★★★★★
Hi! I was just wondering if you could exchange the all-purpose flour for almond and coconut flour.
Hi Ginny, I don’t recommend using almond or coconut flour in place of all purpose. Either would completely change the texture and way these scones bake. We haven’t personally tested this with an alternate flour but I have heard from others who tried an all purpose gluten free (1:1) flour with success. Let us know you try it!
Hi Sally,
I used this as a base, and changed the cocoa powder for matcha powder. How do you prevent scones from becoming too crumbly?
★★★★★
I made these scones with a combination of chocolate chips and espresso chips. I made the glaze using coffee instead of water and I topped them with chocolate sugar. They were absolutely decadent!!! I love your scone recipes! I also made the pumpkin scones and I added raisins and nuts and they were delicious.
★★★★★
First chocolate scones I’ve ever made. They are seriously good, thank you for the recipe.
★★★★★
I absolutely loved this scones! They’re amazing! It was the first time ever that I tried to make scones and turn out surprisingly easy.
Made these for the May challenge and my kids were so excited! It even inspired my 4th grader to ask me to teach him how to make scones.
My dough was very sticky so I added more flour and they were easier to work with but maybe not as tender as they could have been. Since discovering scones, I think I’ve made 7 or so batches and I still am working on that perfect texture!
★★★★
My husband and I have never had a scone before, actually my husband has never even heard of scones before…LOL. I made these for the baking challenge and let me tell you they are divine!!! My husband loves them so much that he’s already asked me to make more to take to his friends at work. Thank you Sally for your amazing recipes and getting us to try new things!
★★★★★
I have made these multiple times and my kids and I just love them
Can I substitute the heavy cream for half and half?
Hi Shruti! Yes, you can, but the scones don’t taste as rich. 🙂
Would I be able to add sliced or chopped fresh strawberries to this recipe? Thank you!!
I can’t see why not. Yum!
I’m really wanting to make a chocolate covered cherry scone, Would substituting some chopped frozen cherries for the chopped chocolate work with this recipe?
Yes! I think it would work and be delicious! Let me know how they turn out 🙂
I’d definitely cut the baking time down by several minutes; mine were in less than 20 minutes and they burned on the bottom! Will definitely try again, but not bake as long.
I don’t have a grater or food processor with me now so can I cut the butter into cubes, freeze them for about 30 minutes, then cut them in?
Loved these scones!! I made them with a chai glaze (just brewed some yummy tea in place of water) for some extra kick– complemented the chocolate of the scones very well 🙂
These scones were AMAZING!!! I have tried to make scones before and have not had much success. These scones were so easy to make and the taste was out of this world. I made them for my husband’s birthday and he was elated. Thanks for giving us an excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast!
Sally, I just made these for a gift and they are delish!! I used hershys chocolate bar for the drizzle and coffee for the glaze! Yum!
This a one fantastic scone recipe! My family and I love it! My 6-year-old even asked for them for his birthday dessert. I find that to completely cover the scone in glaze, it’s best to make a double batch of the glaze. Then, pour a little of that glaze in a glass pie dish or something similar. Place a scone on top of the glaze in the pan, then continue spooning some glaze from the bowl (and from the pan too) to completely cover it. Then, lift it out with a pie server, and set it over a cooling rack that’s over a cookie sheet. I found this was the easiest way to completely cover the scone in glaze without trying to dunk it. Thanks so much for sharing this awesome recipe!
Sally,
I just made these this morning. My new obsession lately has been making all different types of scones. These rank right up there as the moistest, fluffiest scones to date. I followed your recipe to a “T” and they look exactly like your photos. Halfway through drizzling the chocolate, I sampled one and realized that they don’t even need the drizzle, so I left a few with just the glaze. Amazing recipe!!! These have made scone lovers out of people who have told me that they don’t care for scones. That’s the best part of all! Have a great day, Vicki
OH. MA. GAH! I just made these this morning and I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. The hint of cinnamon in there just totally does it for me. I used some black Chocolate Cappuccino coffee to make the glaze and I’m just speechless. I’m also about to go into sugar overload/carb coma…..but it was worth it!
Best scones I’ve ever had. My husband agrees! I didn’t change a thing about the recipe. Sally, I don’t know how you do it! Please post more scone recipes!
I made your amazing looking scones today. I followed your recipe, frozen butter, heavy cream and all, but I used chocolate chips. I have not glazed them yet. At the halfway point of cooking, I went to turn the cookie sheet and found butter bubbling around the scones. They had spread out a lot. I wiped up as much of the butter as I could.
I baked them for a total of 20 minutes. They are flat, hard and burnt. They did not rise like yours either. The dough came together easily/quickly and I didn’t have to add more cream.
I have been baking scones for years. First time this has happened to me. I would appreciate any suggestions, comments……
These look fabulous, but ugh, grating butter! I really HATE grating butter. Even when it’s been in the freezer for an hour, it all disintegrates within about 30 seconds. What’s the secret to doing it right? I usually just give up and rub it in!
No secrets, really! Maybe freeze your butter a little longer than 1 hour. I keep some butter in the freezer, jus tot have when I want to make scones.
Sally, I saw this recipe and had to make it right away. I used 2 Tbsp of coffee in the glaze like you suggested and it adds a whole different (and amazing) dimension to the scones. Love love love this recipe and it will definitely be made again and again in my kitchen. Now I have to work on giving them away before I eat them all myself!
Hi Sally! Can I make this in a cake pan or pie tin? Or should it just be in a circle?
Hi Alexis– baked in a cake pan, you won’t really get that crispy, crumbly crust on the edges of the individual scones. Simply bake as directed on a baking sheet.