This is my go-to scone recipe bursting with fresh blueberries and zingy lemon zest, and topped with a sweet lemon icing. These glazed lemon blueberry scones are soft and tender in the middle, with crisp-crumbly edges, and simply perfect for brunch, tea parties, bridal showers, or really any time at all!
I originally published this recipe in 2015 and have since added new photos and success tips. These have become such a fan favorite that I included the recipe in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
When you think of breakfast treats, do scones come to mind first? In a bakery-case lineup of cinnamon rolls, donuts, muffins, croissants and other pastries, the humble scone doesn’t always get the prime spot or the most attention… but it absolutely should. With the right recipe, scones easily compete with muffins, pastries, and—yes!—even cinnamon rolls.
This lemon blueberry scone recipe in particular has received so much love over the years from readers who have tried it, that I wanted to shine the spotlight on it once again. Here are just a few of the many glowing reviews readers have shared after making these scones:
One reader, Andrea, commented: “Literally the best scone recipe! Grating the frozen butter is a game changer. Everyone comments on how wonderful these scones are… ★★★★★”
Another reader, Susan, commented: “I’m so glad I found this recipe! Absolutely delicious scones. Exactly what I was looking for, as I wasn’t satisfied with other scone recipes I’ve tried. This will be my forever scone recipe! I loved the tip about freezing and grating the butter. What a good idea! ★★★★★”
And one more reader, Claudia, commented: “Easy to make and came out perfectly! This was my first time making scones and these came out so good! Easy-to-follow directions and can be made ahead or frozen! ★★★★★”
If you can’t get enough of my lemon blueberry muffins, you’ll definitely love these scones, as well!
These Lemon Blueberry Scones Are:
- Soft & tender in the center, with crumbly edges
- Packed with juicy blueberries and fresh lemon zest
- Topped with coarse sugar and lemon icing for a sweet finish
All of my scone recipes begin with the same base recipe for scones. A few ingredients change based on flavor, but the process remains the same. This careful formula brings us chocolate chip scones, blueberry scones, pumpkin scones, apple cinnamon scones, and more. It promises the BEST flavor and texture.
Why the Ingredients Promise the Best Results:
- Flour: 2 cups of all-purpose flour is my standard amount, but have some extra on the side for the work surface and your hands.
- Sugar: Scones aren’t meant to be super sweet, so we’re using just enough granulated sugar to lightly sweeten and balance out the tart lemon flavor. You can top them with coarse sugar and icing if you want a sweeter scone, or leave them plain on top to keep these lightly sweet.
- Baking Powder: Adds lift.
- Salt & Vanilla Extract: Add flavor.
- Lemon Zest: You need a full Tablespoon of lemon zest, which is about 2 lemons. Zest the lemons for the scone dough, then juice them to make the lemon icing.
- Cold Butter: Besides flour, cold butter is the main ingredient in scones. It adds flavor, flakiness, crisp edges, and rise. More on butter below!
- Heavy Cream: For the best-tasting pastries, use a thick liquid such as heavy cream. Buttermilk works too! For a nondairy option, try using full-fat canned coconut milk. Avoid thinner liquids such as regular milk or almond milk—you’ll be headed down a one-way street to flat, dry scones.
- Egg: Binds ingredients together.
- Blueberries: For best results, use fresh blueberries. If using frozen, do not thaw.
In Photos: Making Lemon Blueberry Scones
You’ll start with the dry ingredients. Whisk those together with the lemon zest, then cut cold butter into the dry ingredient mixture. You can use a pastry cutter, 2 forks, or your hands. A food processor works too, but it often overworks the scone dough. We want to avoid that.
Success Tip: Use Frozen Grated Butter
Frozen grated butter is key to scone success. As with pie crust, work cold butter into the dry ingredients to create tons of flour-coated butter crumbs. When these crumbs melt as the scones bake, they release steam, which creates all the 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. I recommend grating the frozen butter with a box grater. Use the side with the larger holes.
After cutting the frozen, grated butter in with a pastry cutter, you’ll have a bowl of tiny flour-coated crumbles:
Place the bowl of dry ingredients in the freezer while you get your wet ingredients together. We want to keep things as cold as possible when it comes to making scones.
Now, whisk the wet ingredients together, then pour into the dry ingredients. Add the blueberries, then gently mix together:
Form the dough into a disc, then cut into 8 wedges.
Before baking, brush the scones with heavy cream mixed with water, and sprinkle with coarse sugar. This is one of my little scone tricks. These extras add a bakery-style sparkly crunch and beautiful golden sheen. 🙂
I know I sound like a broken record, but to obtain the desired flaky center and a crumbly exterior, you really have to keep the scone dough as cold as possible. I highly recommend chilling the shaped scones for at least 15 minutes before baking. You can even refrigerate overnight and then bake in the morning, for a quick and easy breakfast treat!
After they’ve chilled, bake the scones until just turning golden brown on top.
Video Tutorial
If you’re interested, I have a 5-minute video demonstrating the scone recipe. I’m making regular blueberry scones in this video, but the process is the same.
2-Ingredient Lemon Glaze
Lemon juice and confectioners’ sugar produce a sweet & tangy lemon icing. The icing seeps into the tops of the scones making these sunshine-y treats almost more than you can handle. They’re so good!!! Vanilla icing or lemon curd would be equally fabulous topping choices, too.
How lovely would a plate of these flavorful scones look on your table of Easter Brunch recipes, or for a special afternoon tea?
More Lemon Recipes
- Lemon Blueberry Cake & Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
- Lemony Blueberry Galette
- Lemon Bars
- Lemon Blueberry Babka
- Homemade Lemon Cupcakes
- Lemon Meringue Pie
- Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Lemon Blueberry Scones
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 8 large scones
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is my go-to scone recipe bursting with fresh blueberries and zingy lemon zest, and topped with a sweet lemon icing. These glazed lemon blueberry scones are soft and tender in the middle, with crisp-crumbly edges, and simply perfect for brunch, tea parties, bridal showers, or really any time at all! Read through the recipe before beginning; it’s imperative to keep the scone dough as cold as possible. This recipe is also in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for hands and work surface
- 6 Tablespoons (75g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon zest
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon (135g/ml) heavy cream, cold and divided
- 1 large egg, cold
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 heaping cup (140g) fresh blueberries
- 1 Tablespoon (15g/ml) water
- optional for topping: coarse sugar
Lemon Icing
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar
- 3 Tablespoons (45g/ml) fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, lemon zest, baking powder, and salt. Using the large holes of a box grater, shred the frozen butter. Add the butter to the flour mixture and use a pastry cutter, two forks, or your fingers to blend until the mixture comes together in pea-sized crumbs. Place the bowl in the freezer before you continue.
- In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together 1/2 cup (120g/ml) of the heavy cream, the egg, and vanilla extract. Remove the flour mixture from the freezer. Drizzle the cream mixture over the flour mixture and add the blueberries. Gently mix together with a spatula or wooden spoon until everything appears moistened and the ingredients are just combined.
- Lightly flour a work surface. Pour the crumbly mixture onto the surface and, with floured hands, work the dough into a ball as best you can. The dough should be sticky and shaggy. If it’s too sticky, sprinkle a little more flour on top. Press the dough into an 8-inch disc, about 1 inch thick. Use a sharp knife or a bench scraper to cut the disc into 8 wedges.
- In a small bowl, mix the remaining 1 Tablespoon cream with the water, then brush it on the scones. For extra sweetness and a little crunch, sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar. (You can do this before or after refrigerating in the next step.) Place the scones on a plate or a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes or up to 24 hours. (If refrigerating for more than an hour, lightly cover the scones.)
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Arrange the chilled scones 2–3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 22–25 minutes or until lightly browned on top and golden around the edges. Cool the scones on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before icing.
- Make the lemon icing: In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice. Drizzle the icing over the scones.
- Store leftover scones covered tightly at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Box Grater | Pastry Cutter | Citrus Juicer | Citrus Zester | Bench Scraper | Brush | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper
- Sugar: These scones are sweet, but feel free to increase to 1/2 cup (100g) of granulated sugar for sweeter scones.
- Blueberries: For best results, use fresh blueberries. If you must use frozen, do not thaw.
- Freeze Before Baking: Freeze scone dough wedges on a plate or baking sheet for 1 hour. Once relatively frozen, they won’t stick together, and you can layer them in a freezer-friendly bag or container and freeze for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen, adding a few minutes to the bake time. Or thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then bake as directed.
- Freeze After Baking: Freeze the baked and cooled scones before topping with icing for up to 3 months. 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 step 5 the next 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Would it be better to prepare them through Step 4 if they were going to sit in the fridge for a full 24 hours or would it be better to just prepare the dry ingredients (Step 1) the day before if I’m needing to save time? (Trying to complete within a 1 hour class period but can break it over two days to make it work.) I’m mostly concerned that the frozen blueberries will completely thaw and possibly all settle at the bottom if we go through Step 4 and then let it sit in the fridge a full 24 hours. Thoughts? Thanks in advance! I love that I can always trust your recipes when my students make them!
Hi Renee, sorry it took us a while to get back to you! If you are using frozen blueberries, it’s best to keep them frozen for as long as possible, so we would recommend mixing together the dry ingredients if you need to get ahead a bit, then cover and place in the refrigerator until you are ready to make the scones. The frozen blueberries would completely thaw if in the refrigerator for that long. Hope this helps!
These have incredible flavour and texture! Paired with clotted cream and voila – best combo ever. I have made these 4 times though. No matter how delicately I handle them when mixing in the blueberries, they always burst open! I don’t mind some subtle staining but makes a horrible mess and it looks nothing like your pictures (the dough is more purple than cream coloured). How does everyone else seem to not have this issue?! I use frozen wild blueberries. Delicious flavour but horrible mess.
Hi Diane, it’s normal for blueberries to burst. Were you working with a large quantity of scone dough? It’s best to make multiple batches instead of multiplying so you can be more gentle with the blueberries. Just be as careful as possible when mixing them in!
Bless your heart! These scones are everything you claimed. I loved how they were SO not dry! I didn’t even need the glaze, just a cup of coffee. I will definitely make these again, but next time I will experiment with cranberries and oranges,
Hello Sally and her wonderful team! Do y’all have experience with making this gluten and dairy free? I’m learning how to bake for friends and 1:1 gluten free flour substitute can be finicky depending on what you are making. Would you know if it should be fine for this?
Also, I plan to use oat milk and dairy free butter. Should I use extra butter in the dough to add some more fat to make up for the heavy whipping cream?
Hi Maddie! We aren’t experienced gluten free or dairy free bakers, so can’t offer much advice. A 1:1 GF flour would be your best bet here. You’ll need something with higher fat to replace the heavy cream, we would try full fat canned coconut milk. We haven’t tested these changes, but let us know if you do! It may be easier to search for a gluten free, dairy free recipe, since adapting this one will definitely take some trial and error.
I can’t buy heavy cream in Canada what can I use instead ?
Hi Kay! Buttermilk works well in scones as well.
Thank you, I’ll give buttermilk a try
I just use whipping cream (35%) (also in Canada)
I made these scones on Saturday, my first time attempting scones, and they turned out amazing!
My wife is diabetic so I substituted Stevia for sugar. Note: If you use a sugar substitute like Stevia for the lemon glaze, make sure to let your scones cook down till they are just warm to the touch and it will take the glaze a little longer to set up. I also didn’t have any all purpose flour so subbed bread flour instead.
We have several new neighbors so decided to have a scone party to get to know everyone. Served these and the orange cranberry scones. People were “arguing” over who got to take leftovers home with them. One man said they were the best scones best ever eaten!!!
What are your thoughts on adding vanilla extract to the lemon icing mixture
Hi Joseph, feel free to replace some of the lemon juice with vanilla extract if you wish!
I’m happy to say I won second place at our local fall fair with this recipe for a scone with fruit. Many thanks for a great recipe!
Any reccomendations for making these mini scones? How much would you reduxe the baking time? Can’t wait to try them!!
Hi Sadie, you can follow the baking times from these mini sprinkle scones as a guide. Enjoy!
These were the BEST scones.
I think I’ll try cranberries next and substitute an orange instead of lemon. Love how moist they were. Thank you
These turned out great! My husband said these tasted just like the ones we love from our local coffee shop! Yum! Yum!
This is the perfect scone! It’s flaky and delicate.
I love this recipe. It’s very easy to do and absolutely delicious. I always prepare mine the night before and put them in the refrigerator. The next morning I brush them with cream and bake them. I always do half of the glaze and it’s plenty for 8 scones. Also I use fresh blueberries and cut them in half to have more small pieces of blueberries.
Love this recipe so much! I have a question: how do I keep the blueberries from not staining the dough? Thanks !
Hi Katiela, a little bleeding of color from the blueberries is completely normal. Just try to use a gentle hand when mixing them in the dough to prevent popping. So glad you enjoyed them!
Love these scones! I have uses this recipe many times and they are delicious! The only thing is I can never get down a consistent bake. I tend to have ro separate the triangles because it is otherwise very wet on the insides. I then end up baking it longer and making all sorts of adjustments during the baking process. When I separate it ends up spreading a little. What might I be doing wrong?
Hi Lfarmer, we’re so glad these scones are a favorite for you! Is the dough super cold when going into the oven? Having very cold dough throughout the process will help ensure the scones keep their shape and not over spread. If you do find they’re still spreading, you can take the pan out of the oven and gently reshape them with a silicone spatula and then return to the oven to finish baking. Hope this helps for your next batch!
This is a great recipe ! I’ve made it several times! I get rave reviews every time! I do substitute the heavy cream with plain Greek sugar free yogurt and a few tablespoons of milk . Reduces the calories a bit .
This is my go-to sweet scone recipe! They’re fantastic!
What a lovely scone recipe…lemon and blueberry. I entered this recipe in my local county fair and WON FIRST PLACE for the Best scone recipe! Another Blue Ribbon Winner by Sally!
Great recipe could I add some white chocolate chips or grated chocolate nex time
I substituted flax egg and sour cream and it turned out great!
Oh my, this receipe made the best scones Ive ever baked. Loved the lemon zest. I brushed with heavy cream and sprinkled with lemon zest and sugar. Delicious!!!
Any change for high altitude on the lemon blueberry scones?
Hi Kerrie, we wish we could help, but we have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
Was a skeptic and first but this recipe is the real deal! Thank you so much!
Loved these! I added some lemon zest to the scone, used a bit more blueberries, and made ahead and froze so I could pull out one or two at a time and bake from frozen. Delightful!
I loved this recipe! My family asked me to make these 2 times in a row!
Best scone recipe I have made. My family loved them. Thank you.
I love this recipe and make it all the time but I am wondering about the metric measurement for flour. 1 cup of flour is 120 grams, so I’m wondering if the extra 10 grams is supposed to be for flouring hands/the work surface or what? Thanks!
Hi Paige, we consistently measure 1 cup of flour as 125g, so 2 cups as 250 g. That does not include extra flour for the surface. Glad these are a favorite for you!
This recipe was easy to follow and the end result was delicious.
These came out delicious, though mine had more of a muffin-like consistency with a crunchy exterior than a scone-like texture which I consider to be more dry/crumbly. When I brought the dough together it was VERY dry so I added a tbsp of heavy cream as suggested, but then it was so wet that I had to add more flour. Could that have caused it? Should I have let it be more dry, or maybe add a tsp of cream at a time next time? Love your recipes and I can’t wait to perfect this one!
Hi Katie, the dough should be just slightly sticky when you bring it together, so for next time, you can add a bit more heavy cream as you mentioned, but in smaller amounts until the dough is just slightly sticky. Thank you for giving these a try!