Family Favorite scone recipe

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.

Print

With ImageWithout Image

Scones

Author: Lisa Marsh

Light and flakey scones with just the right amount of sweetness. This is an easy recipe to make ahead and to adapt for different flavors. Use this recipe to make copycat Starbucks Petit Vanilla Scones.

Ingredients

Dough Recipe

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) cold butter (cut in small cubes)
• ­ 4 cups all purpose flour
• ­ 1⁄2 cup granulated or bakers sugar
• ­ 4 teaspoons baking powder
• ­ 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ­ 1 teaspoon salt (or 1/2 tsp if using salted butter)
• ­ 1 egg
• ­ 1 1⁄2 cups buttermilk
• ­ 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Optional icing and add-ins

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons whole milk
• Optional: extra buttermilk & sugar
• Optional: lemon juice, vanilla beans, lemon zest
• Optional: blueberries, dried cranberries, chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425
2. ­ In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. ­ Add cubed butter and cut in and combine until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
4. ­ If using dried fruits, nuts, chocolate chips, vanilla beans: add to crumb mixture before adding wet ingredients.
5. ­ Combine buttermilk, egg, and vanilla.
6. ­ 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.
7. ­ Divide dough into quarters and press each quarter into a 1⁄2 inch thick circle.
8. ­ Cut each circle into 6 wedges.
9. ­ 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.
10. ­ Place on parchment lined baking sheets. Brush with buttermilk and sprinkle with a little sugar. Skip this step if you plan to add icing.
11. ­ Bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
12. ­ Allow to cool and then drizzle with icing if desired.
13. ­ 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

https://www.whatlisacooks.com/blog/scones

scones, baking, holiday breakfast

breakfast

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @whatlisacooks on instagram and hashtag it #whatlisacooks

Banana Chocolate Chip Blender Muffins

You read that title right - blender muffins.  Absorb that for a sec....

I think I need to just bow out while I'm ahead with this one - I will never try another muffin recipe again.  My children have declared these to be the best muffins they've ever had.  And if you knew my kids, you'd know that they are pretty tough little food critics (my fault, I'm sure). 

I've made a couple batches of these over the last week, and they are inhaling them as fast as I can bake them. But it's totally ok, because these are super easy to make, and relatively healthy (as far as things containing chocolate chips go), and fast! We're talking from starting mixing, to in the oven, in like 5 minutes. 

They are fast to make because they are mostly made in the blender!

I know it's an unconventional way to make this type of recipe, but it totally works.  I love baking stuff like this for my kids, but all the steps and multiple bowls, and waiting for butter to come to room temperature so you can slowly cream it with sugar.... it was kiiillllling me. I had to find an easier way. I am an instant gratification kind of cook.  I like to whip it out and move on to the next thing. So this is just my type of recipe. 

Also the amount of sugar in so many recipes is just crazy! We're not making cake folks, we're making muffins.  If I'm going to put 2 cups of white sugar in something, then let's just be honest and call it cake. I love cake, but I'm not feeding it to my kids every day.  With super sweet ripe bananas and some honey, all that sugar is just not necessary. 

I think these work best as mini muffins, they are just a perfect two bite size, for a little sweet treat or snack. But full size muffins work great too. The whole wheat flour makes them feel really filling, and the little bit of yogurt adds moisture and just a hint of tang that balances out the sweetness really nicely.  You can swap out sour cream if you don't have yogurt.  Or add more banana. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour

• 3 very ripe bananas

• 1/2 cup honey

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

• 1/4 cup plain yogurt (I use whole milk Greek yogurt)

• 1 egg

• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350, or 300 convection. Grease muffin pans (we prefer mini muffin pans), or if you are using paper or silicone liners then just set them out. 

• In the container of your high powered blender, put bananas (broken into a couple of pieces), cold butter (cut up a little), honey, yogurt, vanilla, and egg.

• Start out pulsing the blender to get it started. Stop and push the contents down if you need to. Pulse some more. Once the butter is starting to break up and the ingredients blend together, turn it up gradually. Blend just until everything is well mixed.

• In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips.

• Pour the wet mixture over the dry and fold together gently just until all the flour is moistened.

Note: if you don't have a high powered blender, you can still make these! You'll just do it the old school way - let the butter soften, cream together with the honey, mix in the other wet ingredients (including mashed bananas), and then mix with the dry ingredients.  They will still taste awesome, it will just take a little longer. So get yourself a blender, ok? 

For mini muffins, I like to use a small cookie scoop to fill the muffin cups.  I get the perfect amount every time and all the muffins end up evenly sized with no overflow.

Bake: 20 minutes for mini muffins.  30-40 minutes for regular muffins (depends on how big your cups are and how full you fill them). 1 hour for a loaf of bread. 

If you're of the banana nut persuasion, you could totally add some chopped nuts to these.  We just don't believe in mixing our nuts with our baked goods in this house. ;-) 

Also, a hint:  this recipe totally works with other mashed/pureed fruits too. I'm working an upcoming post about that, with a master quick bread recipe.  But if you can't wait - just use this recipe, and swap out the bananas for any other pureed fruit, just make sure that it adds up to no more than 1 1/4 cups of puree, less if you're using something super wet (like apples). Leave out the chocolate chips and add nuts or raisins, and add a little spice.

Just a few ideas:

• pumpkin muffins: pureed pumpkin, swap maple syrup for the honey, and add 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

• apple pie muffins: puree a couple of tart apples, and add 2 teaspoons cinnamon

• carrot muffin: puree a couple of carrots & a zucchini, and add 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• try other combinations - banana + zucchini, pear + carrot, apple + carrot

(Links contained here are affiliate links.  If you purchase something from a product link I've provided, I get a small commission.  It doesn't cost you any more, but it helps me keep the lights on here.)

Easy Lemonade Lemon Cookie Recipe

I first came across a couple different versions of this recipe over the summer and made some with the kids.  We loved them!  They taste like summer, they are light and tangy and just the right amount of sweet. I think it's a little bit genius to make a lemon cookie using concentrated lemonade (the frozen kind) - you get all that great lemon flavor, but it's so quick and easy!  I use an organic lemonade concentrate, so it does not contain high fructose corn syrup.  

I of course had to tinker with the recipe a bit to suit our taste, so here is my version.

Lemonade Cookies

Ingredients: 

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup lemonade concentrate (the frozen kind)
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Thaw your lemonade concentrate.  I do this by setting the can in a bowl of hot water while I get the rest of the ingredients ready.  Preheat oven to 350 (or 300 convection). 

The usual cookie method: cream butter & sugar (in this case, honey). Then add eggs, vanilla, and lemonade concentrate.  Mix together dry ingredients.  Then fold wet into dry. Stir gently, just enough to moisten all the flour.  This keeps the cookies very light and soft. 

I do all the wet part in my Vitamix. This lets you make it with cold butter.  I hate having to wait for butter to soften. Put the honey and cold butter in the blender.  Pulse on and off, and push down with a spatula, until they are creamed together.  Have patience, this takes a few minutes. But it's a heck of a lot quicker than waiting for butter to soften. Once blended with the rest of the wet ingredients you end up with something very light which, when folded gently into the flour, makes for a very light and soft cookie. 

Drop spoonfuls (or I use a small cookie scoop) on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, depending on size. This will make at least 2 dozen, but probably more depending on how big you make them. 

If you want them extra lemony, use a cup of the lemonade concentrate.  Or you can brush the tops with a bit of it before baking.  To make them look a little extra fancy you could dust them with powdered sugar.