These scones are soft and tender, sweet and delicious. Best of all, they are simple to make. Add your favorite dried fruit or chocolate chips for a tasty treat.
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These scones have become the star of breakfasts and brunches from coast to coast. My husband and I gave these out to family and friends who came to our wedding from out of town. People raved! We ended up sending the recipe home to California, Las Vegas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Florida. My Nana still calls to tell me each time she makes scones.
These scones are easy to grab for a quick breakfast before school or work but are fancy enough to bring to a ladies’ brunch. Kids and adults gobble them up.
Notes on Scone Ingredients:
Flour: all-purpose flour
Sugar: granulated sugar
Baking powder and baking soda: levening agents help your scones to be soft and fluffy.
Salt: table salt
Butter: I use salted butter. Use salted or unsalted, whatever you have on hand.
Be sure your butter is straight-from-the-fridge cold. Some people recommend using frozen butter to make scones, but I find that too difficult to work with. Make it easy on yourself. Stick with cold.
Sour cream: I use full-fat sour cream, but low-fat would work fine.
Egg: a binder. This small change makes scones just a bit different than a biscuit.
Add-ins and extracts: Add dried fruit such as craisins or dried blueberries or chocolate chips. Then, add the extract (flavoring) that pairs with it. My favorite combination is craisins and almond extract. My kids’ favorite combination is chocolate chips and vanilla extract. I’ve been told that K’s friends have looked on with envy at her morning snack, thinking she got to have a giant chocolate chip cookie!
If you are serving chocolate-chip scones at a fancy brunch or tea party, I recommend using mini chocolate chips. If these are for the kids, you can buy a giant bag (we’re talking Costco-sized!) of regular chocolate chips and run them through a nut-chopper. It’s much more cost-effective.
I use this Progressive Nut Chopper (paid link) all the time to chop chocolate chips. I think I’ve used it once or twice for nuts, but I use it all the time to get “mini” chocolate chips but chopping them to “coarse” bits.
Tips for making scones:
Incorporating the Butter:
This recipe uses a new and innovated way to incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients. Take a cold stick of butter and use a cheese grater to grate it right into the dry ingredients. Toss the shreds of butter lightly with the flour so they don’t stick together. You can use your hands for this part.
This way takes less time to do than the traditional way of using a pastry cutter. It seems like less work, too!
Kneading the dough:
After adding the sour cream mixture to the flour mixture, knead the dough a few times to get all of the ingredients to come together fully. If you knead only until it all comes together, this won’t toughen your scones.
Then, simply pat the dough gently into a circle. Dust the top lightly with flour if needed. There’s no need to do a tri-fold like some people recommend for flaky biscuits. I have found that these scones end up flatter and not as fluffy after a tri-fold technique.
Cutting the dough:
With a long kitchen knife, first cut the circle of dough into quarters and then eighths. During this process (especially if you are making a double batch or more), the knife can become quite sticky. Dust the sticky edges with flour, and the knife will slide easily through the dough.
Happy Baking!
Scrumptious Scones
Equipment
- grater
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour 260 grams if measuring by weight
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 Tablespoons cold butter (straight from the fridge) 1 stick
- ½ cup add-ins such as raisins, craisins, other dried fruits, mini chocolate chips. See notes
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon extract such as vanilla or almond. See notes
- 1 teaspoon coarse sugar for topping, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Grate butter into flour mixture a bit at a time, occasionally tossing the grated butter in the flour with your hands.
- Stir dried fruit or chocolate chips into to the flour mixture.
- In a small bowl (at least 3 cup capacity), use a fork to combine sour cream, egg and extract.
- Add the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture, using a wooden spoon to stir. Lightly knead the mixture in the bowl to incorporate all of the flour.
- For regular-sized scones: On a lightly floured surface, gently pat the dough into a circle measuring about 7-8" wide and ¾" thick.
- For mini scones: Separate the dough into 2 equal pieces. On a lightly floured surface, gently pat the dough into 2 circles measuring about 5" wide and ¾" thick.
- If desired, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon coarse sugar. Using a large knife, cut each circle into 8 triangles (like pie wedges). Flour the knife if it gets too sticky.
- Place scones on an ungreased baking sheet 1" apart. For regular-sized scones: bake 15-17 minutes until golden brown. For mini scones: bake 12-14 minutes until golden brown.
Notes
- Chocolate Chip Scones: Use mini-chocolate chips or chopped-up regular-sized chocolate chips. Pair with vanilla extract.
- Craisin Scones: Use craisins paired with almond extract.
- Raisin Scones: Use raisins or currants paired with vanilla extract or almond extract to suit your tastes.
- Blueberry Scones: Use dried blueberries paired with vanilla.
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