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
Super yummy recipe. I did make a small error (definitely recommend reading the full recipe before starting ) and added the blueberries in half frozen and too early, so my dough was pretty blue… but the butter being cut through the dough actually reduced this through the bake! Thanks Sally!
at 400F these scones were almost burnt
I’ve tried this recipe twice with zero success. Grated my frozen butter, measured super carefully – both times ending up with triangles of barely risen dough swimming in butter in the pan, smoke filling the kitchen. Weird texture. Edible because, well…butter, sugar, blueberry lemon but that’s it. Not making these again. Waste of time.
These were great. I used buttermilk and frozen blueberries. I did add way more lemon juice in the glaze than what it called for. Next time I also might add a teeny bit more lemon zest in the recipe as I personally like more lemon flavor. Thank you for the recipe!
These are super lemony and delicious. I didn’t glaze them and they were just perfect. I made small scones using 2 dough balls, good thing there were so many because I had to give half to my son and DIL lol. I’ve tried several varieties of Sally’s scones and each was delicious. I’m going to use her basic recipe and add walnuts, chopped dates and grapefruit zest (I love grapefruit so much, I think this might work. I hope so anyway, grating frozen butter is not easy!)
Same thing as another reviewer – frozen fruit is a nightmare. Way too much moisture, they spread and got purple. I had to throw them out – really disappointing, I would probably not make these with heavy cream – a waste of fat. I would use yogurt, but honestly, I will never make these again.
Best scones ever. I have made these over and over for a few years now. They are so yummy .
I have made these scones multiple times and enjoy them every time! Make sure you are intentional about mixing so that everything is combined before you turn it out onto the counter! Such a good recipe that I always enjoy!
This is my go-to scone recipe. I use this as the basis for any flavor i’m making because this is such an adaptable recipe. I’ve done cranberry orange, coconut lime, dark chocolate chip, chocolate cranberry, strawberry lemon-aid and I will be trying a matcha green tea and almond version. Thank you so much for your wonderful recipes!
Can you use freeze dried blueberries? I’ve tried fresh, today I tried frozen. Still purple. They are baking so they aren’t as rough as my first try but still purple. I covered the blueberries lightly in flour and put back in freezer too. I feel like the moisture messes my recipe up. You’re amazing, I’d love to perfect this 🙂
Hi Heather! Fresh berries will bleed a lot less color than frozen – just make sure to handle with care! We haven’t tested freeze dried blueberries, but fear the dry texture wouldn’t be the best in these scones.
These scones are amazing!!! I’ve made them several times since I came across the recipe. Just made a batch to share with my mom for her birthday. We all LOVE them.
I’m considering trying a batch with lemon and raspberry – has anyone tried this?
Hi Lisa, We are so glad you enjoyed this recipe! You can use raspberries here in place of blueberries. Just remember that over-handling the dough will cause the delicate raspberries to break, making your dough much too wet. Always handle with care. Or follow our recipe for raspberry almond scones!
if you dust your frozen blueberries with flour and put them back in the freezer until you need to add them to the batter, they less likely to bleed and turn your batter purple.
I LOVE your scone recipe – it gets me rave reviews every time I use it. All of your recipes are wonderful. I’m so thankful to you and your blog!
I recently moved to New Mexico which is pretty high altitude. The scones kind of spread more than rise… Any adjustment suggestions for high altitude baking?! Thank you so much, Sally! Happy Holidays 🙂
Hi Paul! I wish we could help, but have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
Love these. Used frozen berries this time but worked out fine. Still in season prefer fresh. Great tip with grating butter
Thank you Sally for a great scone recipe! They got rave reviews with my family at Thanksgiving! I made them ahead of time, put them in my deep freezer and then baked them from frozen on thanksgiving morning. Took about 30 minutes in my oven. I loosely covered them with foil for the last 5 minutes so they didn’t burn. I was worried about baking from frozen as I had always just done the fridge but I think they were my best batch and I’ll freeze them from now on every time. Thanks again!
I’m sure there’s a comment about thins but I can’t seem to find lol. This is my fave recipe ever and so I’m making a batch for my painting class. I’m planning on making before and freezing before baking. How long do these last in the freezer?
Hi Cali, see recipe notes for freezing instructions — they’ll last for up to three months in the freezer. Hope they’re a hit with your class!
Another amazing recipe from Sally! I made these scones for the office, and they are always a big hit. I doubled the recipe, added a dash of nutmeg, and 2 extra tbsp of butter. Amazing with some tea!
This is an excellent recipe. I press the dough into an 8” tart pan, cut into 8 sections, wrap and refrigerate overnight. The next morning I recut the dividing lines, remove the tart ring, and slide the pieces onto the pan. The scones then have a decorative edge and it’s easy to mold the dough in the pan.
I know this is a few years old, but goodness, everyone loved these!!! I am not often a successful baker but your recipes always seem to work for me. My only substitution on the scones was using milk instead of heavy cream – fridge was empty. I worried this would affect the bake but they turned out great! Delicious.
Hi! Do you have an eggless version of these scones?
Hi Snehal, we haven’t tried an eggless version of these scones, but let us know if you do.
Wondering if I can substitute Casava flour for wheat flour or another gluten free flour in this recipe?
Hi Mary, we haven’t tested these scones with any gluten-free flours, so we’re unsure of the results. Let us know if you give anything a try!
Love this recipe. However I have to use 2/3 cup of heavy cream and the dough barely comes together. Other than that it’s the best scone recipes and I have tried so many recipes.
Berett
You can use frozen fruit, been doing it for years in other baked goods and breads. The secret is to keep frozen till the last minute toss fruit with a couple of spoonfuls of flour right before you mix into dough. It helps to keep juices in place if they pop open. It really works.
These are the perhaps the best scones I’ve ever had. The grating the frozen butter technique was pure genius! 10/10
These turned out great! I love the lemon and blueberry flavors together. I used buttermilk instead of heavy cream just because that’s what I had on hand and I don’t think it affected the recipe at all. The flavor was perfect. For the icing I actually used a cream cheese glaze and added some lemon juice to it instead of the traditional vanilla (4 oz cream cheese, 4 tbsp unsalted butter, 1 c. powdered sugar, and about 2-3 tbsp of lemon) and it was AMAZING! I think next time I might make smaller scones just so I don’t eat as many!! 😀
Simply Sublime! Thank you so much these are a hit happy baking ✌️
For your lemon cream cheese glaze- did you melt the butter? or just use softened?
Hi Sally, I have to make mini scones for 22 people this weekend can I double the recipe?
Thank you.
Angie Corrado.
Hi Angie, Yes! You can double the scones recipe or make 2 separate batches. Bake time will be shorter for mini scones. Enjoy!
Mine showed signs of burning with 8 mins left! 🙁 I’m in central coastal california so there isnt usually any elevation considerations for us.
Luckily I prepared two batches, second batch I lowered the oven to 350 and out of caution started with 15 mins. I ultimately ended up taking them out at 24 mins. So to conclude my adventure everything worked according to the recipe and time, but the oven temp needed to be 350 for Monterey CA. 🙂 Other than this issue, they’re amazing! 🙂 Thanks!
Made these a couple weeks ago, and I’ll make them again this weekend. These are the best scones I’ve ever had. I love love love lemon, so these were perfect. A particularly good way to use up blueberries. Moist, flakey and crispy edges, filled with blue goodness.
I love baking treats for work so I wanted to make these as mini scones . Do you know how many discs/size and baking time!
Hi Sharon, we make mini scones often. Prepare the dough, cut it in half to make two smaller disks, then cut each disk into 8 mini scones to have 16 mini scones total. The bake time is a couple minutes shorter. You can see these funfetti chip scones for detailed instructions. Enjoy!
All I can say is WOW! These turned out beautifully and were absolutely delicious! I will definitely be making these again! Can’t wait to try the other scone recipes!
I’m new to this “comment function”, so forgive me for not creating a new comment, but replying to this one. “Read through the recipe before beginning. “—-How I wish I had done this! It’s a bit ironic, that a person who typically does NOT first read through an entire recipe, does not notice this sentence, at the beginning of the recipe. Lesson learned!
On another note, I made the icing a blueberry-lemon icing, by crushing a few blueberries through a sieve, and adiing it to the lemon icing (a bit of extra sugar was needed as well, to thicken the glaze)