These better-than-the-bakery blueberry scones are bursting with juicy blueberries. They’re buttery and moist with crisp, crumbly edges and soft, flaky centers. Crunchy coarse sugar and creamy vanilla icing are the perfect finishing touches!
I originally published this recipe in 2014 and have since added new photos and a video tutorial.
Scones. You either love them or hate them. I used to fall in the latter category, passing on them in favor of muffins or quick breads. Scones can taste pretty dry, comparable to lackluster triangles of cardboard. No, thanks.
But my opinion on scones took a total 180 a few years ago when I attended a cooking event in the Panera Bread test kitchen. Turns out that I’ve been eating all the wrong scones because when done right, these sweet treats tiptoe into a world of pastry perfection.
Since then, I mastered chocolate chip scones, apple cinnamon scones, ham & cheese scones, cinnamon scones, lavender scones, and strawberry lemon scones. I use the same master scone recipe for each flavor, a formula promising the BEST scone texture. By the way, I wrote an entire post devoted to my favorite base scones recipe. Today we’re making blueberry scones, which is definitely my favorite scone flavor.
There’s no denying these are the best blueberry scones on the planet. Strong statement, right? Trust me.
One reader, Rich, commented: “Sally, I would like to say thank you! These pastries were awesome. I was expecting a dry and pale flavor that I usually get from scones. These blueberry scones absolutely melted in our mouths. I can’t say enough about the recipe. One word for these—AWESOME! I am going to try more of your recipes, and I’m sure I won’t be disappointed. ★★★★★“
These Blueberry Scones Have:
- Crisp, crumbly edges
- Soft, moist centers
- Crunchy golden brown exterior
- Buttery rich flavor
- An overflow of blueberries
- Mega vanilla icing drizzles
Let’s make them!
Blueberry Scone Ingredients
Nothing but basic ingredients coming together to produce something extraordinary. 🙂
- 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.
- Baking Powder: Adds lift.
- Salt, Cinnamon, & Vanilla Extract: Add flavor.
- Cold Butter: Besides flour, cold butter is the main ingredient in blueberry 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 milk or almond milk—you’ll be headed down a one-way street to dry, bland, and flat scones.
- Egg: Adds flavor, lift, and structure.
- Blueberries: For best results, use fresh blueberries. If you must use frozen, do not thaw.
Before baking, brush the scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with coarse sugar. These extras add a bakery-style crunch and beautiful golden sheen. Highly recommended!
Frozen Grated Butter
Frozen grated butter is key to blueberry scone success.
Like with pie crust, work the cold butter into the dry ingredients. The cold butter coats the flour. When the butter/flour crumbs melt as the scones bake, they release steam and pockets of air. These pockets add a flaky center, while keeping the edges 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.
I recommend grating the frozen butter with a box grater.
How to Make Blueberry Scones
Blueberry scones are a quick and easy breakfast pastry recipe. Since there’s no yeast, they go from the mixing bowl to the oven relatively quickly. First, mix the dry ingredients together. You need flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. 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. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the blueberries, then gently mix together. Form the dough into a disc on the counter, then cut into 8 wedges.
One of my tricks: To obtain a flaky center and a crumbly exterior, scone dough must remain cold. Cold dough won’t over-spread, either. Therefore, I highly recommend you chill 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 until golden brown.
The scones are fantastic warm out of the oven, but taste even better with a drizzle of vanilla icing on top. The icing is totally optional, but you should never pass up the chance to accessorize! It seeps down into the cracks and crevices, adding even more sweet flavor. A dusting of confectioners’ sugar or pat of homemade honey butter is tasty, too!
More Essential Breakfast Recipes
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My Favorite 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
These better-than-the-bakery blueberry scones are bursting with juicy blueberries. They’re buttery and moist with crisp, crumbly edges and soft, flaky centers. 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
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream (plus 2 Tbsp for brushing)
- 1 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 heaping cup (140g) fresh blueberries
- for topping: coarse sugar and vanilla icing
Instructions
- Whisk flour, 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, 2 forks, or your fingers until the mixture comes together in pea-sized crumbs. See video 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 blueberries, then mix together until everything appears moistened.
- Pour onto the counter and, with floured hands, work the 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.
- 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. After refrigerating, arrange scones 2–3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 22–25 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and lightly browned on top. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes before topping with vanilla icing.
- Leftover iced or un-iced scones keep well at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 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. Or thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then bake as directed.
- Freeze After Baking: Freeze the baked and cooled scones before topping with icing. 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 | Silicone Spatula | Bench Scraper | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Pastry Brush
- Blueberries: For best results, use fresh blueberries. If you must use frozen, do not thaw.
- 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 use a spatula to press back into shape, then return to the oven to finish baking.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Very best blueberry scones ever! I’ve made the recipe twice with only one change the second time around to simplify the process. Rather than trying to grate frozen butter as I did the first time, I grated refrigerator-cold butter with half the effort and then put the grated butter in the freezer until fully frozen. When it came time to put the scones together it was a quick and simple process with the exact same results.
Could I make these with dried blueberries (not freeze dried)? Would they have enough moisture?
Hi Donna, Sure can! Use 1 cup of dried blueberries. (That’s a lot since they’re so small, but you’ll enjoy all those blueberries in each bite!)
I made this scone recipe today and my husband loved them. My first scone endeavor! I forgot to add the blueberries, lol, but they still tasted fabulous: lovely crust and soft, buttery on the inside.
These are the best scones I have ever made – full of flavor, cake-like texture, and an easy to follow recipe. I baked this in a scone pan after cutting the dough into 8 triangles. Just make sure you grease the pan lightly and it will come out beautifully. It won’t have the crispy sides but I don’t mind that. Thanks for this keeper!
Delicious!!!
I mill my own flour and I use Einkon wheat berries. I follow her recipe to the t! Definitely delicious!!!!
Hello! I loved the recipe but noticed my scones spread quite a lot and came out more like a cake vs a scone. Any recommendations or ideas of how to avoid this next go?
Thank you!
Hi Alex, We’re sorry you had trouble with this recipe; we’re happy to help troubleshoot. Make sure all of your ingredients are very cold. We recommend using frozen butter. You can even place your bowl of flour in the refrigerator. 15 minutes is the minimum we recommend chilling the dough but you can chill it longer–up to overnight. Expect some spread, but if the scones are over-spreading as they bake, remove from the oven and press back into its triangle shape using a silicone spatula. You can also try adding 2-3 extra Tbsp of flour to the dough as well. Hope this helps for your next batch!
Just tried this recipe and fresh out of the oven, these scones are amazing! Looking forward to trying more versions AND making this one again! Must say, though, that grating frozen butter is harder than it sounds!
Instead of grating frozen butter, which is a pain, just grate the cold butter, then put it in the freezer. Same results, less effort!
I made these for the first time today. I’ve never made scones so it was a bit of an adventure! I used frozen blueberries and they made the dough blueberry colored. They taste amazing! They just look a little unconventional. Haha! I think I know where I went wrong. Can’t wait to try them again!
This was SO good!! I used blackberries instead of blueberries so it was a little more moist, but I think it might’ve made them even better. I’ve tried a few different scone recipes and this is my fav!
Used first time. It is great Wife loves them
Delicious….BUT soft, like a muffin. What did I do wrong?
Hi Dana, did the edges get crisp and crumbly? The middles will be nice and soft.
I just made the dough and put them in the freezer so they will be ready to bake tomorrow morning. I used half fresh half frozen blueberries and when I was making the dough maybe I smashed too many fresh ones but they ended up really wet, will this effect the baking? Im worried I might have messed them up somehow!
Hi Wil, they may spread too much if the blueberries released a lot of moisture, but freezing before baking will help. Let us know how they bake up!
It is a great recipe. So easy to make and much better than any scone I ever bought. Thank you!
Would this recipe work at high altitude? Denver, CO resident
Hi DB, 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
This is truly the best blueberry scones recipe I’ve ever tried. It is now my go-to. No need to experiment with others! I glazed mine with a lemon icing. My 3 year old grandson took a bite and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh!” Then proceeded to devour his. Thank you Sally!
If I do 3 cups of flour how would that change the recipe
Hi Vy, you’ll have to scale up the other ingredients.
I don’t have any cream. May I use buttermilk in either blueberry or lemon/blueberry?
Hi Sophie! Buttermilk works great here.
These are excellent! Just made them today. First time I shredded butter, really seemed to make a difference, very moist. Thank you!
I really like this recipe but I had a hard ish time but I struggle with directions and stuff myself so it’s not your fault at all. But when I mixed it it came out all blue because I squished the blueberries too much. Will that effect the way they come out or no?
Hi Hope! They should turn out just fine. Make sure to be very gentle when mixing in the blueberries next time if you don’t want blue scones 🙂
These scones are amazing. I only had dried blueberries on hand. They were delicious!
First of your fabulous recipes I wasnt thrilled with. I think the added egg made it cakier
Am I BLUE? I followed the instructions precisely. Graded the frozen butter, measured everything my spooning it and leveling it, I added a heaping cup of frozen Wymans blueberries the little ones. I formed the dough, chilled it, then cut it into wedges because it was very wet, Then I froze it for two hours hoping that would help it from spreading. When I baked them. They came out navy blue! They also spread a bit. I’m not sure I’m crazy about the grating butter and then blending it with the flour. I make scones often and I’ve always just cut it into tiny pieces and blended in with the pastry blender. I’m wondering if it being so fine from grading it caused it to spread a bit. It was definitely well chilled in fact semi frozen.
I made these today and realized that when I bake with frozen berries (not dried) that I usually don’t follow the last few steps, and I usually get better results. Today — not so much. Next time, try mixing the dough till it’s mostly combined, then putting in the berries. All you need to do then is pat and cut, chill and cook.
My family and neighbors love this recipe. I usually use frozen blueberries and sometimes make the scones smaller in size and just bake a shorter amount of time.
How long can you freeze the scone dough before baking. Can I make scone dough ahead?
Hi Summer, see recipe Notes for details on freezing the scones 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. Or thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then bake as directed.
Love this recipe! When freezing the dough, do I top with heavy cream before freezing or before baking from frozen?
Happy New Year ! Have made this recipe many times. Never ever disappoints. Thank you !
Also, can you please tell me where you got the apron you wear in this video. It’s lovely. Thank you.
Take care
Hi Irene, We are glad you enjoyed the scones! That apron is from Anthropology but unfortunately it’s not on their site anymore.
I just made these very delicious scones and they are everything you said they would be so easy to make
I love this scone recipe. It is so perfect in every way, but I struggle forming the scones when I add blueberries. They just keep falling apart and everything is very crumbly, but I managed to move the dough around and make rough facsimiles of eight triangles. Is it that I’m using fresh blueberries and they’re too large?
Hi Susan! Are the blueberries quite large? That could make it more difficult. Does the scone dough seem too dry? 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.
My scones turned out perfect!! I ate 3 in one sitting and trying not to eat the rest
Thank you for the recipe. I added coconut milk and cane sugar. The dough got very sticky but I put it in the freezer and I was able to form the scones. Thank you!
Great recipe! Worked awesome, totally recommend! Just make sure when you take them out of the oven that your face is away from the heat! (Felt like I was entering the sun)
Can I use a scone pan and just press the dough into the triangle sections of the pan? (The recipe sounds amazing!)
Hi Debbie, we haven’t tested these in a speciality scone pan but we don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Let us know how they turn out if you try!