The Best Lemon Blueberry Scones from our Bakery

At our bakery, the Flour Barn, we not only sell a lot of scones each week, but we also teach a class on scones. It is such a fun class because there are so many important baking concepts you learn when making scones. I love this lemon blueberry scone recipe. They are a staple and a customer favorite. These tender scones take the sweetness of juicy blueberries and the tartness of bright lemon zest and create the perfect flaky scones. This is the best recipe for making your scones right away for your family or to make ahead for a larger group of people.

Gluten Development and Fat pockets

​Two concepts are important when making scones…

Gluten development:

When working with any baked good gluten is always playing a role whether you know it or not. Items like bread or pizza crust require lots of gluten development. Items like pie crust, biscuits, and scones need little gluten development. Gluten development begins when your dry ingredients combine with your wet ingredients.  For this recipe, we cut our butter into our dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients. That is when the clock starts ticking. You want to stir until your batter is just combined, this is why a Dutch whisk (aka pastry whisk) can be so useful. It is designed to efficiently mix wet and dry ingredients, limiting gluten development. You also want to keep this in mind while shaping your scones, the more you work them the more gluten development. If you overdevelope your dough the result will be a cakey and dense scone. 

Fat pockets:

In this recipe, the fat is the butter. Many recipes have you use frozen butter or frozen pieces of butter. This is because cold butter is crucial to the baking process of scones. When you put the scones in the oven the cold butter will melt, and create crumbling pockets within your delicious scone. If the butter has already melted into your scone before it’s baked, you will not get a flaky, crumbly scone. You may get a flat scone or a very cakey scone. 

Scone or Biscuit?!

I discovered homemade scones when I was living in my first apartment, working the night shift, and spending all my free time working through cookbooks. As I read through the recipe I remember thinking, this is a biscuit with some sugar, and they are very similar. However, there are some key differences that change how you eat them. Biscuits are typically made with milk or buttermilk, while scone dough is made with heavy cream and sometimes an egg. The higher fat content in the scone recipes changes the final crumb, making it a little tighter and more crumbly. As you’ll see in this lemon blueberry scone recipe, there is more sugar in a scone as well as add-ins to bring more flavor.

In my mind, a biscuit is the perfect base for so many toppings: jams, butter, gravy, and stews. A biscuit is meant to be paired, while the best scones need only be paired with a good cup of coffee. Out at the bakery, we are constantly adding pastries and trialing new ideas but at the end of the day, if I could pick one thing from the case, I would pick one of our warm scones. Never too rich, perfectly buttery, and crumbly, ideal for a sit-down breakfast or a meal on the go.

If you are looking for some delicious biscuits we have great recipes for Sourdough Biscuits, Buttermilk Biscuits, and Drop Biscuits!

​Amazing Flavors

Blueberry lemon scones are a favorite of mine all year round. The fresh lemon juice in the sweet lemon glaze gives it a delicious bright flavor. The cream scone base allows for the tart lemon flavor to be balanced by the sweet scone and sweet blueberries. I especially love adding fresh blueberries because I think it surprises people. Everyone’s expecting frozen when instead you get a beautifully fresh, perfect burst of blueberry that goes so well with a tart lemon glaze. But there are so many ways to adapt this recipe. Change your scones with the seasons. Leave out the lemon zest and replace the blueberries with chocolate chips for a toddler-friendly classic.

Lemon Blueberry is by far our most popular scone at the bakery, but we’ve also tried lemon raspberry and lemon blackberry. Here is a great Orange Cranberry recipe, another favorite. Vary the add-ins and find a complimentary glaze, and the possibilities are endless! Use this as a starting block and keep experimenting. Start baking scones and don’t look back. Be that crazy guy who delivers scones around the neighborhood. Make them every Saturday for your gang. Master this recipe because, believe me, it’s such a great one to have memorized.

Making these Delicious Lemon Blueberry scones Ahead

To prep these ahead for a no-mess morning, I simply place the pan of unbaked scones in the freezer overnight or until solid. I’ll then transfer them to an airtight container and keep them in the freezer. The morning I want to bake them, I’ll take the scones straight from the freezer, lay them out on a cookie sheet, and bake them in a 350-degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are golden brown. We decrease the oven temp so they do not get too brown before they’re cooked through. If making the glaze ahead, you can store it in the fridge for up to a week or freeze it and allow it to thaw by placing the container in warm water. Easy Peasy Lemon Blueberry Scones!

The Best Lemon Blueberry Scones from our Bakery

I absolutely love this lemon blueberry scone recipe. We make these weekly at our bakery, the Flour Barn Bakery. They are a staple and a customer favorite.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 45 minutes mins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Servings 8 scones

Ingredients

  

• 300 grams/ 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 100 grams/ 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 90 grams/ 6 Tablespoons butter cubed
• zest of one lemon
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 egg

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest.
• Add the cubed butter to the mixture. Using a pastry blender or your fingers, begin to blend the butter with the dry ingredients by breaking up the cubed butter. Continue to work it until the mixture looks like a coarse meal and the largest butter pieces are the size of peas.
• Add in the fresh blueberries and mix them in with a fork.
• In a small bowl, mix 1 cup of heavy cream and the egg with a fork until well combined.
• With the same fork, make a well in the middle of your dry ingredients. Add in the cream and egg. Begin stirring the wet ingredients into the dry, working from the middle out toward the edges of the bowl until all of the flour is hydrated.
• Pour the batter out onto a lightly floured surface and pat it together into a disk. Continue to pat the dough into an 8-inch circle of an even thickness, about 3/4 of an inch. Use a sharp knife to cut the disk into 8 even triangles. Gently place each triangle onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
• Stick in the freezer for 15 minutes to get the butter cold.
• Bake for 20 minutes or until the scones are golden brown.
• To Make the Glaze: Whisk together the fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar. The glaze should be thin enough to drizzle, yet thick enough to sit on top of the scones. Allow the scones to cool slightly before drizzling the glaze generously over the scones. I like to go over each scone twice to make sure they have enough!

Keyword scones