One of my favorite breakfast treats is Blueberry Scones warm from the oven. Flaky pastry with a crunchy exterior loaded with plump juicy blueberries.
My blueberry scones recipe comes from a friend in Ocean City, New Jersey, who made the best scones I have ever tasted. Mine are close, but I will admit his were better.
But I promise these will be the best blueberry scones you’ll ever make! I made my scones with fresh blueberries, but you can also use frozen if fresh aren’t available.
I like to think of this recipe as a Master Scone Recipe, which can easily be adapted to your favorite flavor of scone. Replace the blueberries with your favorite baking chips (mine are butterscotch or chocolate chips), dried fruit, or nuts. Or any combination that you enjoy.
Ingredients to make Blueberry Scones
Let’s start by gathering the ingredients we need to make my Blueberry Scones. In Chef Speak, this is called the “Mise en Place,” which translates to “Everything in its Place.”
Not only does setting up your ingredients ahead of time speed up the cooking process, it also helps ensure you have everything you need to make the dish.
Simple Ingredients
- all-purpose flour
- unsalted butter
- granulated sugar
- baking powder
- heavy cream
- vanilla extract
- salt
- egg
- blueberries
I didn’t include it in this recipe, but you can add lemon zest or make a lemon glaze to make lemon blueberry scones.
How to make Blueberry Scones
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder to a large bowl.
- Whisk until well blended.
- Use a box grater to shred the frozen butter.
- Add the grated butter to the flour mixture and combine with two forks or a pastry blender. The finished mixture should be pea-sized crumbs. You can use your hands to mix the butter in, but your hands will warm up the butter, so you need to wear plastic gloves and be quick if using your hands. Place in the refrigerator until needed.
- Add the heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract to a small bowl.
- Mix until well blended.
- Add the wet ingredients and blueberries to the dry ingredients.
- Mix until the dough forms. For the tender scones, do not overmix.
- Turn the scone dough out on a lightly floured surface. Coat your hands with flour and form the dough into an 8-inch disc. *If the dough feels too sticky, add a little more flour to the dough. If the dough feels too dry, add a little more cream to the dough.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the disc into 8 wedges.
- Place the wedges on a parchment-lined sheet pan leaving a few inches between the scones.
- Brush the scones with heavy cream and sprinkle raw or coarse sugar on top of the scones. *You can leave out the sugar if you want to cut back on sugar. It’s not essential.
- Refrigerate the scones for 30 – 60 minutes before baking.
- Place the baking sheet on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
I’m sure you’ll agree after one bite that this is the best blueberry scone recipe. They are so much better than Starbucks blueberry scones!
Recipe FAQ’s
Using good quality butter is most important. And the less you knead the dough, the less the gluten will tighten up, which will keep your scones tender.
Buttermilk can easily be used instead of heavy cream. Heavy cream is my first choice, but buttermilk will add a tangy flavor to the scones.
Keeping the ingredients cold is essential to making good scones. refrigerating helps to keep the butter from melting, which helps create flaky, delicious scones.
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Blueberry Scones Recipe
Ingredients
Scone
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 10 tablespoon unsalted butter (frozen) shredded
- 1½ cup blueberries fresh or frozen
- 2 tablespoon heavy cream brush scones before baking
- 2 tablespoon raw or coarse sugar sprinkle topping – optional
Instructions
Scone
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder to a large mixing bowl and whisk until well blended.
- Use a box grater to shred the frozen butter.
- Add the grated butter to the dry mixture and combine with two forks. The finished mixture should be pea-sized crumbs. You can use your hands to mix the butter in, but your hands will warm up the butter, so you need to wear plastic gloves and be quick if using your hands.Place in the refrigerator until needed.
- Add the heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract to a small mixing bowl. Mix until well blended.
- Add the wet ingredients and blueberries to the dry ingredients.
- Mix until the dough forms. Don't overmix.
- Turn the scone dough out on a lightly floured surface. Coat your hands with flour and form the dough into an 8-inch disc.*If the dough feels too sticky, add a little more flour to the dough. If the dough feels too dry, add a little more cream to the dough.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the disc into 8 wedges.
- Place the wedges on a parchment-lined baking sheet leaving a few inches between the scones.
- Brush the scones with heavy cream and sprinkle raw or coarse sugar on top of the scones.You can leave out the sugar if you want to cut back on sugar, it's not essential.
- Refrigerate the scones for 30 – 60 minutes before baking.
- Place the baking sheet on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
- Place the scones on a wire rack to cool.
Liz
Served these scones at a brunch and numerous people commented they were the best scones they’ve ever had and I have to agree! Thank you for such a fantastic recipe!
Carrie
Absolutely delicious! I used the ingredients as listed but changed a few of the techniques to make them on my second try.
My first batch i followed everything as written. However, i had a hard time incorporating the butter into the flour with those tiny shredded pieces! The scones spread out too much. This also could have been from not using enough flour in high humidity. Also, could have been from not refrigerating the dough long enough!
Second time, i did not freeze the butter and did not grate it. I cut into tiny cubes and mixed the flour mixture with my hands until well incorporated and then placed in the fridge to chill while i got the wet ingredients together. After mixing the wet with the dry, I made sure to add extra flour just before turning out onto the floured countertop as it was a bit too sticky. This worked well!
After cutting into slices and brushing with the cream and sugar, i placed into the freezer instead of the fridge! This came together more quickly than the fridge. The scones were nice and firm but not solid. They stayed together without much spreading during baking and were just perfect! Thank you! A fairly easy recipe to put together much like biscuits and so yummy!!! This will be my go-to scone recipe for sure!
Cathy
Can I use buttermilk instead of cream?
Chef Dennis Littley
You can, the fat will be greatly reduced which will affect the overall taste somewhat, but they should still be pretty darn delicious. The only thing I would suggest is reducing the baking powder to 2 tsp and add 1 tsp of baking soda.
Cathy
OK – thanks so much!!