These blueberry scones are soft, tender and moist with the perfect amount of fresh blueberries folded in! A hint of lemon zest rounds out the flavor!
I am not going to bore you with a long diatribe about how much I LOVE scones, because I already did that.
Unsurprisingly, I am super picky about my scones. I have very specific ideals for what makes the perfect scone. It is not your run-of-the-mill dry, fluffy American scone.
No, there will be no dry scones in my kitchen! The perfect scone is soft, tender and moist. It is rich and slightly sweet so as never to be confused with a biscuit.
These are the British scones of my youth. For three years in my teens my family lived in Hong Kong. It was still a British colony at that point and good scones were everywhere (so was dim sum, btw!). On Saturdays we used to buy a bag of raisin scones from Oliver’s that were still warm from the oven. When we moved back to the States, I searched for a good scone for a decade before finally just resolving to make my own.
Starbuck’s scones are the closest, but let’s be honest, they are always SO DRY! ?
These blueberry scones are rich, tender and always moist! The fresh blueberries are folded in at the end so that they don’t squish and you end up with pockets of blueberries bursting with flavor!
Add a little clotted cream and jam, and you’ve got yourself a perfect tea time snack!
What is the secret to perfect blueberry scones?
- Cut the butter into the dry ingredients completely! I know this goes against what all the other people say but years of testing and making giant batches at the restaurants has proven to me that this makes the most tender and moist scones. It means you need fewer wet ingredients to make a cohesive dough, which means less gluten! No tough, sad scones here!
- Whisk together all the wet ingredients. In large batches I use an immersion blender but a whisk does the job just fine here! Because you have whisked the eggs into the cream, it means you don’t have to mix your dough while the eggs incorporate. Less mixing after the addition of wet ingredients means more tender baked goods!
- Make the dough in the mixer but fold the blueberries in by hand. A stand mixer will make a more tender scone but finishing by hand gives you the control to incorporate just enough without over mixing. Folding the blueberries in at the end will prevent premature popping and allow for an even distribution. No uneven blueberry distributions in these blueberry scones! The horror!
Blueberry Scones
Ingredients
- 321 g All-purpose flour
- 110 g Sugar
- ½ Zest of lemon
- ¾ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Baking powder
- 113 g Butter (cold, cubed)
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 2 Eggs
- 115 g Heavy Cream
- 1 cup Fresh Blueberries (smaller ones work best!)
- ¼ cup Turbinado Sugar (for finishing)
- 2 tablespoon Heavy Cream (for finishing)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F
- Zest lemon into sugar and set aside. The longer this sits, the more pronounced the lemon flavor.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the flour, sugar with zest, salt, and baking powder. Mix with paddle (by hand) just to distribute ingredients. Add butter and mix on low to cut in the butter until the butter is no longer visible and it resembles wet sand.
- While this is mixing combine the vanilla, eggs and cream with an immersion blender or whisk and blend until smooth.
- With the mixer running on low, slowly pour in the cream mixture and mix until almost incorporated.
- Dump out mixture on a dry surface and knead dough together (gently, with love!). Add in the blueberries once no visible dry spots remain and gently fold them in.
- Roll out a rectangle to ½ inch thickness and cut 4 inch strips using a bench scraper. Cut each strip into squares and then cut each square in half on the diagonal to form triangles. Place triangles onto parchment lined baking sheet. You can press any scraps into another square or rectangle and cut more scones! Chill completely before baking. You can also wrap them very well and freeze them. Then proceed to baking them straight from frozen!
- Brush scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar.
- Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges, puffed and the centers provide a little resistance when touched gently.
- Cool completely on baking sheets or eat them warm!
Video Instructions
Notes
Loretta says
Finally, a recipe for dense, moist scones. Any chance you could post for an apricot almond? Or just a variation? The Blueberry were perfect.
Lindsey says
Thank you, Loretta! I cannot resist the siren call of a new scone recipe, so the answer is YES! If I'm going to make an apricot almond I want to develop a recipe for an almond scone base with dried apricots. We could throw some toasted almonds in there too if you want, but now I can't stop thinking about an almond scone....Happy baking! While I work on that you should try some of the other scone recipes on the site. I think you'll enjoy them too!
image15 says
These came out great! Super moist and delicious!
Lindsey says
Thank you so much for your comment! Happy to hear it! ????