Family Favorite scone recipe
Light and flakey fresh baked scones can’t be beat. This recipe is versatile and works with lots of flavor combinations.
I love a recipe that is versatile and flexible and works in a lot of different versions. I have made many versions of this scone recipe for many years now and they turn out great every time. It’s a flexible recipe that can be cut in half or doubled, and made in a variety of flavors and sizes.
One of our favorite family christmas breakfast treats are these scones make with a cranberry orange flavor. Something about that combination of flavors just feels festive to me.
My husband loves blueberry scones and I feel like the kind you buy are too often dry and crumbly, but I think the buttermilk in these keeps them flakey and moist and they make the best blueberry scones I’ve ever had.
And most recently I have been using this recipe to make a copycat version of the Starbucks Petite Vanilla Scones - my kids absolutely love those but it’s too expensive to buy very often. Trader Joe’s also sells a bag of little vanilla scones which are pretty good too. But neither of those are as good as these.
Scroll on down for the basic recipe, and be sure to read the notes where I tell you how to make some of our favorite variations. But even the plain version is amazing fresh out of the oven with a little butter or jam.
Scones
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425
- In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add cubed butter and cut in and combine until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
- If using dried fruits, nuts, chocolate chips, vanilla beans: add to crumb mixture before adding wet ingredients.
- Combine buttermilk, egg, and vanilla.
- Add wet mixture to dry mixture and combine until it comes together into dough. Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead several times until well mixed.
- Divide dough into quarters and press each quarter into a 1⁄2 inch thick circle.
- Cut each circle into 6 wedges.
- Alternatively, you can roll the entire dough out to 1⁄2 inch thick and cut in squares, or use a round biscuit cutter to cut circles.
- Place on parchment lined baking sheets. Brush with buttermilk and sprinkle with a little sugar. Skip this step if you plan to add icing.
- Bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
- Allow to cool and then drizzle with icing if desired.
- You can make this dough ahead and refrigerate or freeze until ready to bake.
Notes
Starbucks copycat petit vanilla scones:
- divide the dough into 8 rounds instead of four.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Top with vanilla bean icing after cooling
Vanilla Bean Icing:
- Combine powdered sugar and milk until smooth.
- Scrape vanilla beans in and mix well
Blueberry scones:
- It works best if you use frozen blueberries and mix them right at the end and then work fast to get your scones rolled out before the blueberries thaw.
Lemon scones:
- Add the zest of one lemon to the dough
- Replace a tablespoon of buttermilk with lemon juice
Lemon icing:
- replace one tablespoon of milk in icing recipe with lemon juice.
- add the zest of one lemon to the icing.
Orange Cranberry Scones (our holiday breakfast favorite)
- Add orange zest and about a cup of dried cranberries to the dough
Free Christmas Printables
A couple of quick printables I made for my kids for holiday fun - one is a wish list and the other is a sort of holiday bingo.
Free Christmas Printables For Kids
I made up a couple of quick printables for my kids for this December & holiday season, so I thought I’d share them here with you.
Click the image to download and print
Christmas wish list printable
The first thing here is a free Christmas wish list printable.
I like the ideas I’ve seen folks talk about that focus on four gift ideas - something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read - so I went with that structure.
I also wanted to encourage them to think about someone else this Christmas, so I added a section for add their thoughts about a wish for someone else.
You can click on the image to get to a downloadable and printable pdf.
click the image to download and print
December Kindness Bingo
The second one is a fun little Kindness Bingo activity for the month.
I wanted something to help get us in the spirit of kindness and giving this year, without spending a lot of money. looked at a bunch of “random acts of kindness” things for kids online, but frankly they all looked like a whole bunch of work for me.
I wanted to come up with something that would get my kids thinking of and being kind to others, without just straight up creating a lot of extra work for myself. I’m exhausted enough as it is.
So I came up with this. They are mostly things the kids can do at home, independently, with supplies we already have. The younger ones might need a little help with a few these, but I mostly tried to add things that I knew my kids were capable of doing on their own. I wanted this for two reasons - one, because it’s less work for a lazy/tired mom; and two, because I think the act of kindness means a lot more when it’s really their own work.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and have some fun with these!
25 Days of Christmas Activity Calendar
A fun one from the archives - a simple 25 days of christmas activity calendar for the kids.
I'm all about keeping things fun but simple at the holidays. I want them to be special and memorable and fun for my kids, but also for me to. If I'm working so hard at over the top decorating and crafts the whole time, then I'm not actually getting to pause and enjoy it. So there needs to be balance.. For Christmas, I decorate a little, we do a few projects, we do a tree, and a wreath. Sometimes we get the lights up on the house, but not every year. There is holiday baking, and cards, Santa visits, and gifts of course.
I'm not going all out decorating my house with garlands and centerpieces and changing out all my table decor and putting up 5 trees and wreaths on every door and car. It's just not me. I'm somewhat of a minimalist, and I enjoy the holidays more when I'm not working my butt off the whole time. But when you have little kids who get excited about such things, it's impossible to avoid adding on a little extra holiday festivity and activity. And really the best thing about Christmas is enjoying it through the eyes of a child.
So what could I do that's easy for me, and exciting for them? A few years ago I think I came up with the perfect thing. I took the basics of several different ideas I saw, and made it my own. And I kinda loved it. We've been doing this for a few years now and it never gets old. It fits all my requirements - it's exciting and fun for the kids, but it's easy for me.
Our 25 Days of Christmas Activity Calendar!
Basically - it's like an advent calendar and a whole plan of fun holiday activities, all rolled into one. It's homemade and personal, and the activities can be whatever you want.
This was so easy to put together - some things I already had around the house, one quick trip to the craft store, and some printables. Really not much money spent at all. Basically - a ribbon, with little envelopes clothespinned to it, with a paper in each envelope containing a holiday themed activity for each day.
What you'll need:
- a length of ribbon - the size will depend on where you're going to put it.
- little envelopes - I used glassine envelopes, but you could use any kind, even those small coin envelopes.
- colorful paper - I used leftover wrapping paper
- round labels or stickers - that you can either print or write on. I got my labels at a craft store, but I think these are the same size. This is the template I used to print my numbers.
- clothespins - I used red ones and some extra festive holiday ones.
- your printed activity cards
- hooks - or something to hang it from (or you can see in the picture above that I just tied it to a curtain rod)
- a blank December calendar page (optional, just for planning your activities)
How I made it:
Figure out your list of all the things you'd like to do with your kids this holiday season. I suggest you come up with a list of at least 30, so that if something isn't going to work out you have a few backups that you can easily switch out when nobody is looking. Try to have a good mix of very small things and bigger 'events'.
Arrange your activities by day. I printed a December calendar page to use, just to have something for a worksheet as I was planning out my days, so I could pencil in what I was thinking for each day. Here's a page with a nice printable calendar. I spent a little time with our family calendar and my activity calendar and penciled in what I thought would work for each day. We have very small activities (like reading a Christmas story, have hot cocoa, pop popcorn, etc.) on school days, and we have bigger things on weekends and once the kids were out of school for holiday break. I included things that we would already be doing anyway - like getting our Christmas tree, putting up lights, and visiting Santa - so a lot of it isn't even new stuff. And I tried to include some extra fun activities like make a gingerbread house, drive around to look at Christmas lights, etc.
You can just write each activity on a little piece of paper that will fit in your envelope, or you can get as fancy as you like with it and decorate cards, or print them out. I got super lazy and just used a free printable for my activity cards. I've posted links to several different advent activity printables on my Christmas Pinterest board. Even if you do make your own, it's fun to look at some of the links to just get ideas.
After you have your list of activities and your supplies, figure out where you're going to put it, and measure your ribbon to fit that space, leaving a little extra for a bit of swag. I originally had planned to put mine across the fireplace (you can see in the corner of one picture above that I had even already put some hooks up), but then I realized that our cats would be too interested in the ribbons, so I put it across a window instead.
Cut out your activity cards and your colored paper to the same size, so they'll fit in your envelopes. Since I was using clear envelopes I needed to cover the activity cards so my kids wouldn't peek. And since it would show through the envelopes, I wanted something pretty. I used some old Christmas wrapping paper that I didn't really have enough of to wrap with anyway.
Label each envelope with a number 1 - 25. I did this with red stickers, I got a sheet of stickers at my craft store and printed the numbers on them. But you could totally just use a red sharpie and your best writing (but I'm a lefty and my handwriting is terrible!).
Now you've got everything together - just assemble. Put a colored paper and an activity card in each envelope, fold them over slightly to hang in the ribbon, clip on with a clothes pin. I used a different color paper for every 5 days, so we had a little way to mark time with littler kids. And I alternated a few Santa clothespins in with my less expensive pins.
And that's it! My super simple 25 days of Christmas. My kids loved it, and it was the perfect amount of festivity for me! I hope you enjoy!
I even made an extra set to give to a friend as a gift - I packed it all up with some extra ribbon and a festive bag and it make a great little early holiday gift for the family.
I couldn't find online sources for all the things I used, but here are most of them.
Easy Holiday Teacher Gifts
We made some very simple gifts for our kids teachers.
Every year the requests come out to contribute to class gifts for teachers, and I always debate whether to participate in the group gift. I don't doubt that the teacher appreciates these gifts, but they seem so impersonal to me. Our teachers work so hard for us. And especially for our unique little (big!) family I recognize that they may even be working just a little harder sometimes (and well, I know I tend to be a squeaky wheel). I know I can't do much, given budget and free time constraints, but I do feel like making something personal is the very least I can do for these people that give so much of their time for us. Spending a little of my precious time to thank the people that spend so much of their time with my most precious people just feels better than putting some cash in an envelope.
I always make some kind of baked goods for the holidays, and I've given other small things along with them in the past. Since I'm making somewhat of a name for myself around these schools for my lunch making, I figured I'd go slightly with that theme for my teacher gifts this year.
So my super simple and fun little gift idea: pack up my usual holiday cookie gift in one of our favorite lunch containers, EasyLunchboxes. Teachers need lunch too, so I'm hoping they will find this to be something they can actually use, and hopefully remember how much we appreciate them when they use it.
I'm feeling pretty good about this right now - I think I've got something that will put a little smile on their faces, and let them know that we appreciate what they do for us. And for me, it fit in my limited budget and was very easy to do.
I brightened it up a little with a few colors of cocktail napkins that I had picked up recently at Ikea.
The main compartment has two flavors of homemade biscotti - a basic almond biscotti, and a new double chocolate version that I've never done before (I just added 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup chocolate chips, and skipped the cinnamon and almonds). Those are topped with one cut out chocolate cookie decorated by the kids, in a little parchment bag. (It's nice to have a little of the kids touch to the gift, but let's be honest, most adults don't love those sugary sweet frosted cookies)
One of the small compartments contains one of the EasyLunchboxes mini dipper containers (I've included the lid as well, just under the napkin) with a few easy chocolate cookies I made using this recipe. And in the smallest compartment is a dark chocolate covered salted caramel (not homemade), wrapped in a green napkin like a little present.
Topped with the EasyLunchboxes lid and tied up with a pretty bow. And that's it.
Easy little felt Christmas tree activity
Almost too simple to share - but this is a quick little holiday fun activity you can make with scraps of craft felt.
If you're like me, you see all this amazing crafty holiday stuff all over your favorite pages and maybe let out a little groan. That's nice for people that have that kind of time. But I've got four little kids and not a lot of spare time to prep for elaborate Christmas crafts or activities. So here's one for you that I know you can pull off. Because if I can manage it, anybody can! It takes no artistic talent, you just need to know how to use scissors. And the supplies are very minimal.
Can you cut a triangle? Ok, then you're good.
All you need is a couple pieces of felt. I happened to have a stack of random felt from a project a few years ago, so I was happy to find a use for it. The only part of this that requires a tiny bit of precision is cutting out the tree. I used a ruler and a pencil to get my lines somewhat straight. After that, just randomly cut out shapes. I managed to get a few that look a little like stars, some diamonds, some circles. I cut a few pieces in long wavy shapes for a look of a garland on the tree, and then a lot of just random little snips of a few different colors. That's all.
I got the idea from seeing a bigger, wall sized thing in a catalog. But I wanted to do something smaller. So these are made from just small pieces of felt - the size of a piece of paper. The whole thing folds up and stows nicely in a quart sized ziploc bag - perfect for sticking in a purse for an activity to take along to a restaurant. I originally made them last year before we were going on an airplane flight. I only made two and I should have made four, because my kids of course argued over who got the first turns.
