Recipe: Scones, scones, scones!

Scones are the absolute best seller at the coffee shop. We’ve rolled out muffins, cookies, even mousse cakes and croissants… but the scone rules all. And why not? When made correctly, scones are tender, not-too-sweet, filling little pastries that pair better with tea or coffee than just about anything else. The flavor possibilities are practically endless, too, which makes it fun to whip up a large batch and make lots of variations from the same ball of dough.

It’s quite a shame that good scones are sometimes hard to find. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve encountered scones that are hard and dry… and both of these issues can be avoided simply by not overworking the dough. My favorite base recipe is one I found on Genius Kitchen years ago, and my adaptation of it is what I’ll share here, but I’ve adjusted it a little over the years. Mostly I’ve found this scone recipe works best when you weigh ingredients, as using cups can result in inconsistent amounts of flour.

There really isn’t any reason to settle for a bad scone, so try the below recipe and see what you think!

Basic Scones

115g (1/2 cup) cold butter, cubed
325g  (2 1/2 cups) flour, all purpose
1 tbsp baking powder
75g (generous 1/3 cup) white sugar
1 large pinch salt
160ml (2/3 cup) whole milk

1. Preheat your oven to 210°C (410°F). In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter with your hands until you have fine granules. (Alternately, combine the ingredients in a food processor and pulse.)


2. Pour the milk over the butter/flour mixture and stir it together with a fork very delicately until it just barely hangs together. You do not want a smooth dough; the one thing that will ruin a scone is overworking the dough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a rough circle. At this point you can cut them into the traditional wedges, but when making multiple flavors I like the following method.


4. First, split the dough into 10 pieces of equal size. On a large cookie tray lined with parchment or a silicone mat, begin forming the scones. Use a cookie cutter or round mold (anything from 3″ to 4″ diameter is fine). Being very careful not to overwork the dough, pinch off about 1/3 of one of the 16ths of dough and pat it into the bottom. Layer on your fruits and then top it with the other 2/3 of the dough. Pat it down, but again be careful to work the dough as little as possible. Top with whatever garnish you’ll be using and bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Now that you’ve got the basic recipe, it’s time for the fun part… customization!

TIPS FOR FILLINGS

  • Be sure not to fill too much fruit between the dough layers, or the scones will get soggy.
  • If the finished scones won’t be getting any glaze or if the fruits you are using are tart like strawberries or apples, sprinkle some vanilla (or plain) sugar over the tops before baking. It creates a lovely sweet crust that contrasts the inside texture perfectly.
  • Do keep storage in mind; scones with fresh fruit in or on them will need to be refrigerated. Once you’re ready to serve them, just pop each scone in the microwave for 10-20 seconds just to take the chill off and soften the scone.

I made 9 types today. I’ll outline not only those, but suggest some further flavor combinations!

Orange: Zest and juice an orange. Reserve a bit of the zest for garnish. Mix the juice with the rest of the zest and add powdered sugar until the glaze comes together. Bake the scone dough plain and glaze while still warm. (If you are doing a whole batch of orange, mix the zest into the dough. If you’re doing a mix, you risk overmixing it by doing this.) 1 orange will make enough glaze for about 6 scones.

Lemon: Zest and juice a lemon. Reserve a bit of the zest for garnish. Mix the juice with the rest of the zest and add powdered sugar until the glaze comes together. Bake the scone dough plain and glaze while still warm. (If you are doing a whole batch of lemon, mix the zest into the dough. If you’re doing a mix, you risk overmixing it by doing this.) 1 lemon will make enough glaze for about 4 scones.

Lemon Poppy Seed: Just like lemon scone above, but add poppy seeds to the glaze. If you are making an entire batch of lemon poppy seed muffins, add the poppy seeds and lemon zest to the dough in addition to covering them with glaze once they are done.

Snickerdoodle: Sprinkle the tops liberally with cinnamon sugar before baking.

Cinnamon Apple: Line the tops with thinly sliced apples and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar before baking.

Peach: Fill and top with fresh peach slices. Sprinkle on some plain sugar before baking.

Strawberry: Slice your berries, then toss them with some sugar and let them sit for 30 minutes to draw out the juices. Drain the berries of juice and spread them on a layer of paper towels. Top with another layer of paper towels and press dry. (This is also a method you should use for any other especially juicy fruits.) Fill and top the scones with strawberries and sprinkle with plain sugar before baking.

Almond Apricot: Fill and top the scones with sliced apricots. Sprinkle almonds over the top before baking. Once cooled, dust liberally with powdered sugar.

Blueberry Streusel: Fill the dough with fresh blueberries and sprinkle with a healthy dose of your favorite streusel before baking. Here’s my favorite streusel recipe and the instructions for making it. You will only need about 1/4 of this batch to make a whole batch of blueberry streusel scones.

Double Chocolate Chip: Fill the scones with white and dark chocolate chips. Drizzle in melted chocolate.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry: Make strawberry scones as outlined above, drizzle liberally with melted chocolate once cooled.

Cranberry Walnut: Add dried cranberries and nuts to the dough.

Apple Crisp: Make apple scones as outlined above, but sandwich the apples between the dough layers and top with streusel.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut: Add white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts to the dough.

…And so on!

9 comments

  1. Jaggiebun says:

    I’ll have to try these! I’ve been really loving scones lately. All the different variations look so yummy, especially the peach and lemon ones. Also, you took really gorgeous pictures of them … great post!!

  2. Shirley Saywood says:

    We need to make abut 100 scones for a fundraiser. Please can you advise the best way to do this. Love this recipe…perhaps we just make several batches of these. Just hoping that we could do just one or two larger batches. Thanks

    • Katharina
      Katharina says:

      Hi, Shirley! Sorry for the delayed response.

      I have used to do catering orders many times. It doubles, quadruples, whatever you need without issue! I used to just make a very large batch (say the above times 5 or 6) of base dough and add fruits/glazes according to whatever flavors were requested. You can get lots of flavors from one base dough.

  3. Isabella says:

    Hello! Was planning to make these for my grandmother for Mother’s Day, but I did want to ask-how big are the circle cutters you use to mold the scones? And if I don’t have a cookie cutter large enough, is there something else I can use, or can I just pat the dough down? I don’t see a diameter posted anywhere, and since this is kind of an on the fly recipe, I don’t really have any time to get any big circle cutters or anything.
    Thank you for your help! 😀

    • Katharina
      Katharina says:

      Oh my gosh, I am so sorry that I could not answer this in time! We were in Japan and I was just behind on comments.

      For future reference, these can be made with almost any shape. You can even just lay them down in dollops if you want. Scones are very rustic anyway!

      I have also used heart cookie cutters in the past as well as patting them into a layer and cutting them into squares. I added a diameter note for the size I used, but they are honestly so flexible that almost anything works.

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