Scones? Yes please!

When guests spend the night at my place, I typically ask them what they would like to eat for breakfast the next day. The answer I usually get is: “scones please!” Blueberry, cranberry, plain, chocolate chips or blackberry, my guests are never disappointed with my scones. Leftover are rare, but if there are any, my guests are always more than happy to leave with a doggy bag.

Growing up I thought all scones were dry and plain and although I did enjoy eating them with Devon cream (English clotted cream), they were not my favourite. But as time went on, I became more curious about this breakfast treat and started trying different recipes. After several attempts and some catastrophes (sort of), lots of tweaking, combining and subsidizing, I finally found a recipe that is sweet, yet not too sweet and moist while not being too “cakey”. The secret: buttermilk, lot’s of it!

You see, most of the recipes that I tried called for 2/3 cup – ¾ cup of buttermilk for 3 cups of flour, but I generally put 1 generous cup, giving my scone this extra moisture that I was craving. Another thing that I have worked on was to be able to offer different varieties without having to bake all morning so I came up with this basic recipe in which I just have to add the toppings I want. I also tend to separate my batter in 3 and then add the toppings which allow me to make 3 different kinds of mini-scones in one batch (that way I can please all of my houseguests!). 

One thing that I should mention is that when I took the pictures for this particular post, I totally forgot to put the blueberries back in the freezer after taking the ingredients picture. The result, the blueberries had time to thaw so the blueberry scones turned out blue. Moral of the story, leave your blueberries in the freezer until you are ready to incorporate them into your batter. You could also use fresh berries, but through all my trials and errors, I noticed that frozen fruits also help give extra moisture so I would stick to frozen fruits (bonus, frozen fruits are available year round at a very reasonable price).


I could have re-done the pictures for this post as I make this recipe quite often, but I chose not to in order for all of you to avoid doing the same mistake (and maybe to prove my friend Lianne wrong. See Lianne, I do make mistakes in the kitchen from time to time!)


So for all of you out there, here is my famous scone recipe, hope you enjoy!


Lysianne's basic scone recipe

1 cup of buttermilk
1 egg
3 C. flour (I typically use half regular half whole wheat)
4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 C. butter (I use salted)
1/2 C. sugar
½ teaspoon of lemon juice
Frozen fruits or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Beat egg into buttermilk then add lemon juice, set aside. In the bowl of your stand mixer (you can also mix the ingredients the good old fashion way, but you have to be extremely careful not to over mix otherwise the scones will be dried) sift together (using your flat beater) flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Add the butter (mix until the chunks of butter are about the size of peas).

Add the buttermilk and egg mixture and mix well (at the lowest speed). Once your dough is even (no lumps) add your sugar and mix until you reach an even consistency.

Put your dough onto a floured board and form 3 even balls. 

 Incorporate your fruits into the dough. Then pat out your ball to form a thick circle.

Cut each circle into 6 wedges and transfer onto a baking sheet (I always use a silpat!)

Bake for 15 -20 minutes (depending on your oven). Serve warm with butter, Devon cream (English cream) or like many of my friends like it with maple butter!

They will keep in a sealed container at room temperature for 2 days or you can also freeze them for up to a month (but you won't need to!).

Makes 18 mini scones