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. 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 🙂
One reader, Wendy, commented: “Oh my gosh, I was so intimidated at the thought of making scones. I thought it was so much more complicated. I’ve made these scones twice already—once blueberry and once ham and cheese. SO GOOD! Thank you for an uncomplicated, fool-proof recipe! ★★★★★“
One reader, Yelena, commented: “Absolutely delicious! Easy to make, simple ingredients, and just perfect. ★★★★★“
One reader, Venessa, commented: “It’s my go-to scone recipe. They turn out moist for a scone and so very yummy. Easy to make, which I always appreciate. Thank you! ★★★★★“
One reader, Donna, commented: “This was my first attempt at making scones. The result was amazing! These scones are super easy and delicious! The perfect consistency and nice and moist. I received so many compliments! ★★★★★“
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. 🙂
Print
How 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 (8 Tbsp; 113g) 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 | Silicone 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Did you ever test potato scones and squash scones using same formula that gives same perfect results?
Hi Carmella, here’s our pumpkin scones!
This is my go to scone recipe and I have tried several versions and they are all wonderful. This morning I tried using Trader Joe’s salted caramel chips and used the coffee icing from the cinnamon chip recipe. Fabulous!
This recipe is excellent. Grating the butter makes everything so much easier. Making sure that the prepared scones are placed in the freezer before baking ensures that they back perfectly. Such great tips throughout the entire recipe. It’s my new go to recipe for delicious scones. Thank you!
Scones had way too much butter. The texture was off. I would reduce the butter by half.
Hello there, Sally McKenney and staff,
Your scone recipe is amazing! I’ve had great success creating blueberry scones over the years, thank you.
Over the past few days wild blackberries are in season. Making the scones with freshly picked blackberries has resulted in a very wet and sticky dough. (similar to Hema’s comment)
I’ve continued to chill the dough as instructed.
Could the moisture from the blackberries be the culprit?
The final result is a very yummy scone albeit slightly flat compared to the previous blueberry scones.
Please advise.
Darren
Hi Darren, happy to help troubleshoot, as blackberry scones made with fresh-picked berries sound amazing! Are your blackberries wet from rinsing them when you added them to the dough? Maybe they just need to be patted dry first?
Hello Beth,
Thank you for offering to help. I patted the blackberries dry and refrigerated them. The blackberries tend to break up when mixed into the dough.
Should I try reducing the liquid volume?
I appreciate your professional assistance.
Darren
Hi Darren, some breakage of the berries can be normal (and hard to prevent, especially if they are quite ripe!). Instead of reducing the liquid, you can add a bit more flour (about 1 Tablespoon as a time) until the dough comes together to a workable consistency. It should still be a sticky dough, but adding a bit more flour will help. Hope this helps for your next batch!
Hello Beth and Lexi,
Thank you for your guidance. I’ll add more flour as recommended. A follow up comment will post after my next attempt.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Darren
These are a favorite in our house. We make them pretty regularly, although by a happy mistake, one day we left out the egg. This yields more tender and short scone, which we actually prefer, although they’re delicious both ways. I’ve tried a number of the suggested preparations, but an easy and delicious topping to use is orange zest in the dough and some brown sugar on top prior to baking.
It was the perfect day to bake something! Cooler weather, kitchen window breezes, and fresh picked blueberries! This recipe is great. After thought- I wish I’d added some lemon zest with a lemon glaze.. I’ll be making these again!!!
Good recipe, quite happy with the way they came out (I made them as you would with a ruff pastry).
Have you ever made this using Kerry Gold butter? Do you know if I would need to make any adjustments with the higher fat content?
Hi Julie, we have made the scones with butter with higher butterfat content (like Kerrygold brand) and we did not make any changes. They turned out well!
Thank you, Trina! And thanks for such a speedy reply!
Hi! In this recipe, could you use whole milk instead of heavy cream or buttermilk?
Hi Hannah, whole milk is fine, but you’ll miss some richness and texture.
I used this recipe to make coconut pecan scones with vanilla coconut icing, they are delicious!
That sounds delicious. Did you used the tossted shaved coconut with the pecans and use coconut milk? I would love to know how you did this.
Hello Ms. Sally
My husband is diabetic and sweetening baked goods with dates have helped him to enjoy desserts again without spiking his blood glucose. Can I use dates as a sweetener for your scone recipe? The original comes out perfect every time
Hi Liz, we wish we could help, but we haven not tested this recipe with date syrup in place of the sugars. It may be best to find a scone recipe specifically developed to use date syrup, but let us know if you do any experimenting!
I have attempted this recipe twice now and I have found that it is incredibly wet and sticky – both times I’ve needed to add about 3/4 cup of flour to be able to work with the dough.
I can’t imagine where I am going wrong. But they are delicious despite the added flour
Hi Hema, This is a very sticky dough! If you decide to try these again and your dough is too sticky to work with, you can certainly add in a bit more flour to bring it to a workable consistency. You can also try coating your hands with flour and do the best you can to shape them. Since we are chilling the dough before we bake them you can try forming your circle the best you can, refrigerate it and then re-shaping if needed before cutting. The colder the dough the less sticky / wet it should be. Hope this is helpful!
I made these scones exactly as written. My add-in ingredient was chocolate chips and then served with Saskatoon berry jam. They are perfection!!!! I have now found my new obsession and will be trying this recipe with all sorts of seasonal fruits. Thank you!!!
This was my first time making scones and they were very tasty! The only thing I did have some troubles with was getting them into “perfect” triangles. Is putting the dough in the refrigerator/freezer highly recommended to do?
Will definitely be making these again but a different flavor next time!!
Chilling the scones helps them keep their shape, yes!
Hi!
Can I use Crisco shortening instead of unsalted butter?
Hi Dee, we recommend sticking with butter for best texture and flavor.
Wow this recipe is amazing, I haven’t made scones in many years, I did a batch of pecan-raisin and chocolate chip, they all came out delicious
Thanks
Hello – my daughter and I discovered this recipe during Covid and we LOVE it! Just a quick question – can we use half & half as a substitute for the heavy cream? It’s all we have on hand right now, and we just got a fresh batch of saskatoon berries we’d like to use!!
Hi Janice, you can use half and half here if needed. Enjoy!
Hi Sally & Team – this is my “go-to, perfect all the time” scone recipe.
The GA Peach Truck was in my area recently so I have an abundance of peaches and have already made numerous peach desserts. Do you think I can use peaches in the scones, or do you think peaches have too much water?
Hi Eileen, Peaches work wonderfully. Chop them and blot them a little dry before using in the dough.
I had high hopes for this recipe but was sadly disappointed. I have always made my scones with grated frozen butter so this was nothing new to me. I found the addition of vanilla and cinnamon off putting in taste. My dough was extremely cold and yet the scones flattened out more than normal. I guess the lesson is, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. I’ll go back to my original recipe.
Some points to be made about these, and all, scones found on this
website. They are not British scones they are American scones.
Point one: British scones are not made with egg
Point two: British scones are not made with shredded frozen butter
Point three: British scones are not meant to be sweet on their own
Point four: British scones are not triangular in shape
Last final point: British scones are not iced ever
These scones are simply amazing!!!!
I do find it hard to form into a disk and cut into wedges as my mixture seems to dry. I’m afraid to overwork. Any suggestions for this? Add more cream perhaps seems obvious, but I thought that I would check with you first. I add frozen raspberry, blueberry and blackberry mixture. My disc looks far from your beautiful picture.
Hi Heather! There may be too much flour in your dough. 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.
Best scones I ever made! I made clotted cream and used the remaining liquid from that in the scones. Soooo good.
This was absolutely delicious. I made this recipe with frozen cherries and we loved it. The texture is a bit more cake like but it was scrumptious with a bit of butter & jam slathered on top.
Would this recipe work with almond flour instead of all purpose flour?
Hi Lucy, we don’t recommend almond flour as it has very different baking properties and is not usually a 1:1 swap. We haven’t tested it, but you might have success experimenting with a gluten-free all-purpose flour like Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup. If you give anything a try, we’d love to know how it goes for you!
My family loves your cranberry orange and lemon blueberry scones. I tried to do frozen mixed berries with these and didn’t have good luck. I think there was too much water in the berries, although I followed your instructions and didn’t thaw them. Any tips on how to make the mixed berries work?
Thanks!
Hi Lindsey, frozen berries will certainly release more liquid into the dough. If the dough seems especially wet, you can add more flour (1 Tablespoon at a time) until it comes together to a workable consistency. Or if you can use fresh berries, that will also help! Let us know if we can help troubleshoot further.
I sprinkle/mix frozen berries with flour before adding and that tends to help.
I would like to make a raspberry white chocolate chip scone, but don’t want the seeds from the raspberries. If I were to strain the raspberries and use more of a raspberry puree…what modifications to the recipe would you recommend? 1 cup of white chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of raspberry puree perhaps? Thank you for your help and guidance!
I’ve been baking with Sally’s recipes for a decade now and every single one has turned out beautifully and delicious! I met Sally on her book tour for her first cookbook in Portsmouth, NH around 2014/2015! It’s my favorite cookbook. 🙂 Thank you, Sally!
Hi Emily, we haven’t tried adding a fruit puree to these scones, but it will take some tweaking of the other ingredients so that the dough isn’t too wet. Let us know if you decide to do any experimenting, otherwise, raspberry jam would be great spread on top of the baked scones!
THESE WERE SO GOOD!!! Would 100% do them again, they go great with lemon icing. I’d just make a double batch
I made these with cinnamon chips and they came out great. Didn’t do well with making the triangles but next time I’ll do two 5″ discs.
I want to add orange marmalade but don’t know how much so it doesn’t change the amount of other ingredients. Have you tried that? I see your recipe for orange & cranberry scones but that isn’t what I want to try this time. Thank you.
Hi Jeanie, we haven’t tried adding marmalade to these scones, but it will take some tweaking of the other ingredients so that the dough isn’t too wet. Let us know if you decide to do any experimenting, otherwise, orange marmalade would be great spread on top of the baked scones!
Better than my Irish soda bread. Just added raisins. Used buttermilk. So tender and absolutely delicious. ❤️
They’re sweeter and more cookie-like than I prefer. But definitely so much more moist than the first recipe I tried! Delicious, but not quite the scones I’m looking for.