Sour Cream and Fruit Scones
- Total Time
- 35 minutes, plus cooling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 2cups/255 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
- ½cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- 1tablespoon baking powder
- ¾teaspoon kosher salt
- ½cup/115 grams cold unsalted butter (1 stick)
- 1cup frozen cherries (halved), peaches (in bite-size pieces) or berries
- ½cup/120 milliliters sour cream or plain full-fat Greek yogurt
- ¼cup/60 milliliters milk (preferably whole, but whatever you have is OK)
- 1large egg, beaten
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 400 degrees with a rack in the upper third. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Step 2
Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Using the large holes of a box grater, grate butter directly into the dry ingredients, stopping a few times along the way to toss the butter pieces into the flour. Use your fingers to work the butter into slightly smaller pieces. Add cherries and toss to combine.
- Step 3
In a small bowl, whisk together sour cream and milk. Add to the flour mixture, and use a fork to stir until all the dry flour bits are incorporated, but the dough is still shaggy. Smoosh and knead the dough a few times until it barely holds together, then dump the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.
- Step 4
Pat dough to a 1-inch-thick rectangle. Cut into 8 squares, transfer to the prepared sheet, and brush the tops with beaten egg.
- Step 5
Bake until golden brown, 18 to 22 minutes. Let cool slightly. Scones will keep, covered at room temperature, for 3 days. Reheat, if you like, in a toaster oven or at 350 degrees until warmed through.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
The fruits make this dough very sticky so have extra flour for your hands and work surface. Freeze the stick of butter and use a hand grater to add it to the dry ingredients in small pea size butter balls. Add lemon zest and vanilla extract and I brush the top and sides with buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar before baking to add crunch. Because the dough is sticky, don't separate them fully before baking. Cut it, bake it for 18-23 minutes, then separate fully, and bake five minutes longer.
Is it essential to use a grater for the butter and your hands for mixing? It seems that using your hands would melt the butter. It’s so much easier to use the food processor to mix the butter and the dry ingredients.
These are the best scones I ever made! Pulsed the dry ingredients together in a food processsor. Cubed a stick of frozen butter and cut it into the flour with the processor. Turned it all into a bowl, tossed in berries and then the. wet ingredients. Didn't have frozen fruit so used fresh blueberries. Sprinkled a tiny bit of sugar over the egg wash; baked 18 minutes. Perfect. Next time I would cut them into 12 or 16 as they were huge.
I've made these twice now (so good) but the first time was SO sticky i almost gave up. This time, I used a little more milk (thanks, John b).But the BIG progress was using a sheet of parchment paper--once I dumped the 'shaggy' dough onto the floured (plastic, not wooden) board, i laid the parchment paper on top and pressed down on it and all around the sides to form the rectangle, which worked wonderfully. Thin spatula to transfer to baking sheet with more parchment. No sticky hands!
At Still Delicious Bakery we routinely use pure coconut yogurt in lieu of sour cream and/or yogurt. Consistency of coconut yogurt varies across different brands so overtime you may want to try different ones. Anita's is quite thick and locally made if you can locate it. Enjoy.
Grating frozen butter is the best way there is for incorporating it in this type of baked good. Works like a charm and I won't do it any other way. I keep plenty of butter around in the freezer. I have found that freezing scones and biscuits for a bit after they are formed makes them tender. You can also make a batch of something, freeze them and bake them off as wanted. I've worked in restaurants that use frozen commercial biscuits and they go straight from the freezer to a hot oven.
Excellent and just sweet enough! I found that I had to add 2-3 tablespoons more milk to compensate for dry flour.
Use a rimmed baking sheet. I didn't and the butter melted and my fire alarms were uuuhhhhhh thoroughly displeased.
I wish I hadn't made these! They weren't scones. Were recipe testers used? I now see comments that matched my outcome: "tasty, but like a cross between a moist cookie and a pancake. They didn't rise at all, rather flattened out and not scone-like crumbly at all." "more "flat muffin" "missing the biscuit-like texture I expect from a scone". My family: "like an apple fritter". I'm an extremely experienced baker, followed drxns precisely, use gram scale. Maybe they need real kneading?
Grate the butter and stick it in the freezer before doing anything else. Make sure to use fresh baking powder and to space the scones at least two inches apart on the baking sheet. (They puff up more than you’d expect.). Absolutely perfect scones!
Most delicious scones ever. Just the right balance of sweetness and butter. I used fresh blueberries. This recipe is a winner! Yummmm
Served, first time since pandemic, at small family gathering (6 all using social distancing). Used frozen mixed berries, added lemon zest and served with farm cream - it was a massive success. Will definitely be making these again.
Very tasty. Will try with other fruits. I used frozen sliced peaches, which I cut ahead then returned to freezer until time to assemble all. Good suggestion from others to get everything measured ahead. Even with that, I worried that the mixture was just going to fall apart. I kneaded a couple more times, then coaxed it all together. I left the dough a bit too thick, probably 1 1/2 inches, so needed 25 minutes to bake. Next time I will fashion dough ball in a disc and cut into 8 triangles.
We made this recipe as written, other than grating the butter and placing it in the freezer before proceeding. We also added turbinado sugar to the top after washing with egg. They are divine and easy. Husband and I both let out a little groan after tasting.
Made with some raspberries found at the bottom of the freezer. These are wonderful! Not dry at all, like some scones. I made some slight changes in the ingredients because pandemic, but the recipe was resilient and delicious!
Super tasty! The dough is sticky but not too hard to work with. Just pat into a rectangle as best you can. Don’t overwork it! Frozen cherries were a revelation.
1/2 recipe. 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Blueberries. Nothing frozen. No egg wash. Used toaster oven. Not sconey in texture except top is crunchy.
These were okay, but not as tasty as I had hoped. Tasted like a biscuit with cherries, not a scone. The dough was very crumbly and not at all dough-like until I added a little more milk. Would add more cherries if I made them again.
Accidentally added egg to the batter, and it worked perfectly. Also cooked from frozen, and they were delicious - maybe a little flat, but still tasted like a scone.
These were very good. They made huge delicious scones. The dough was a bit dry for me, so I lightly added drizzles of cream until more of the flour incorporated. (Others complained of the dough being too sticky, so not sure what happened there.) My cherries were big—I might quarter them rather than halving next time.
Yum yum yum! I’m not sure what some of these critical comments are about! These are super easy to throw together, the dough was very manageable and they rose beautifully. I made with frozen blueberries and will definitely try adding lemon zest next time. 🍋
Sorry, this recipe isn’t that great. I prefer the traditional scone recipes.
When using your hands to form the scones it helps to keep your hands moistened. I guess experienced bakers already know that. I didn't.
Delicious. I followed JMac’s suggestion re: food processor because grating frozen butter is a chore. Used a mix of frozen berries, cut the dough into 16 small triangles, and they came out the perfect size. They are fluffier than a typical scone - they almost had a “muffin top” consistency but I really enjoy that. Definitely going to make again w/different flavor combos, and I’ll probably add some citrus zest next time!!
These were delicious and easy to make. I did not use the box grater, simply cut the butter into tiny cubes and mixed with my hands. I also skipped the last step to place the dough on the counter and cut into squares. I simply mixed in a bowl and formed squares with my hands. I ran out of eggs and skipped that step also.I used frozen peaches.
These are a huge hit at our house for weekend breakfasts and the leftovers last in the fridge all week long. A few tips I’ve learned along the way: Wet your hands before you pat out the dough into a rectangle to make it less sticky. Use chocolate milk with the sour cream to make it extra rich and delicious. Add a little flaky salt on top of the scones right before you put them in the oven to balance out the richness.
This is a super easy and delicious scone! I really enjoyed reading comments and will definitely try some suggestions. I used blueberries and sour cream, and the dough was very loose and dry. I was afraid I needed to add more liquid. However, I just used it as is and formed the scones as directed (except I made 12 instead of eight) and they were absolutely beautiful! I am in Colorado at about 6000 feet.
This is a great scone recipe. Straightforward, adjustable, flexible. And simple! I cut it in half and made a batch of 6 wedge shaped scones, filled with lots of fresh strawberries and orange peel, and coated with a thin orange glaze. The perfect base recipe for creativity and using what is on hand.
Followed the recipe (with scale for weights) and I know our oven is calibrated, but these did not work for me. The batter was very sticky and they spread *a lot* so I followed someone’s tip to cut again and separate partway through the baking (at 18 minutes). Flipped at 22 minutes and cooked for 5 more minutes with convection on but they were still a wee bit gummy in the center. They taste good but texture is weird. (Reduced sugar to 80 grams; cut into 12 pieces instead of 8.)
These are so good!! Usually I do not prefer scones because they seem dry and unappealing. These are far from dry. I used plain whole milk yogurt that I strained overnight to get extra water out, whole milk, some frozen mixed berries I had in the freezer and some diced fresh peaches I froze overnight. I think the deeply frozen fruit required these to be baked longer. Also, I cut into 12 squares and found them to be the perfect size. Could the sugar be reduced??
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