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Summer marks the beginning of the berry season here in the Northwest. Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackcaps and of course huckleberries begin their glorious arrival.
This recipe for Sourdough Scones with Lemony Glaze came about after I ended up with extra blackberries after a catering event, and wanted to use up some extra sourdough discard,(sourdough starter) I had in my fridge.
Let me just say right away, the sourdough starter gives the scones an earthy robust flavor that pairs beautifully with sweet and tangy berries.
what is sourdough starter/discard?
Sourdough Starter is often referred to as “wild yeast”, made from flour and water and the wild yeast in the air around us,and it is typically used as the “yeast” when baking Sourdough Bread. The sourdough “discard” – the part of the starter that often goes to waste- can be used to make flavorful scones, biscuits, wafflesand pancakes.
what can you do with sourdough discard?
- Make Sourdough Waffles!
- Make Sourdough Pancakes!
- Make Sourdough Biscuits
- Make Sourdough Buns!
- Make Sourdough Tortillas!
A few days ago, on a camping trip in Idaho, we stumbled upon a patch of wild strawberries. In size, they were the smaller than a pea, yet surprisingly, bursting with so much strawberry flavor, it was hard to believe the flavor was real and not manufactured. It was as if all the strawberry flavor of a regular-sized strawberry was packed into their tiny little bodies, they were so intense and delicious!
For the tastiest berries, head to your local farmers market. There, produce is picked right before it is sold, given time to ripen on the vine. Much of the produce that finds its way to our grocery stores have been picked early for travel, ripening off the vine, producing a fruit or vegetable that often lacks flavor and vibrancy.
How to get the best looking Berry Scones?
When making berry scones, an easy way to make them so you can actually see the berries after they are baked is to line a cake pan with plastic wrap or parchment. Place a layer of fresh berries on the bottom of the pan.
Then gently press in your scone dough over the berries. Freeze for a couple of hours. Invert, then cut into wedges. This way, the berries are on the top of the scone. Cutting them into wedges when frozen makes it easy to get uniform pieces. If the dough is too hard to get the knife through, just let thaw for 15-20 minutes on the counter.
Let them thaw on a parchment– lined baking sheet before baking.
How to make Sourdough Scones- Tips
Whenever you follow a recipe calling for flour, make sure to mix the container of flour before measuring, fluffing it up. If flour sits for too long in the bag or canister, it will settle and get heavy and dense. Giving a quick mix with a wooden spoon will add air to it and will ensure that you don’t end up with too much flour in the recipe. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup.
The basic recipe is easy, just read it over once before starting. Use cold butter, and don’t leave out the lemon zest. Don’t overwork the dough, which will release the gluten in the flour and cause the scones to be chewy.
Place wedges on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spaced 2 inches apart, let thaw, and bake for 18-24 minutes.
More recipes you may enjoy:
Sourdough Scones
- Prep Time: 170
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: breads, scones,
- Method: baked
- Cuisine: pacific northwest
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
An easy recipe for Sourdough Scones with Berries and Lemon Glaze using Sourdough Starter! Plus an easy tip to help keep your berries intact! Vegan Adaptable!
Ingredients
Scones:
- 2 cup fresh or frozen blackberries (or raspberries or other berries)
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (see notes)
- zest from one lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup cold butter- sliced into 8 pieces ( or vegan butter)
——-
- 1 cup sourdough starter (275 grams)
- 1/3 cup milk or cream (or nut milk, plus more if necessary)
——-
1 beaten egg, for brushing, optional
Lemony Glaze:
- 1/4 cup Fresh Lemon Juice
- 1 cup powdered Sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter (optional)
Instructions
- Line an 8-inch cake pan with parchment and fill with 2 cups fresh berries. If your berries are very tender, freeze for 30-60 minutes beforehand, this way they will hold their shape ( and not smash) a little better.
- In a food processor, pulse flour, lemon zest, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar. Pulse in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse sand.
- In a small bowl mix milk and sourdough starter together. Add the starter mixture to the food processor and pulse until it just forms a ball (just a few times) adding a little more milk only if necessary. Dough should be heavy and thick. Don’t overwork it.
- Spread the dough over the berries and press down gently, into all the corners with your fingers. Place in the freezer for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400F. Remove dough from the freezer and invert on cutting board. Let sit a few minutes or longer until thawed enough to cut. Cut into 8 equal size pie shape wedges. Brush with beaten egg (optional). Space them 2 inches apart (they will puff and spread a bit) on parchment-lined baking sheet, let thaw 20-30 minutes and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
- While baking, make the glaze. Stir sugar into lemon juice in a small pot on the stove until dissolved. Whisk in butter (optional). Set aside. Drizzle over warm scones.
Notes
If you prefer to mix berries into the dough itself- using frozen berries makes this much easier. Simply fold them into the dough, and no need to freeze the dough. This will save time here!
If subbing other flours- just start with 1/2 cup. (For example, 1/2 cup whole wheat mixed with 2 cups white.) You can tweak it from there, the next time. 🙂
Nutrition
- Calories: 325
Keywords: sourdough scones, blackberry scones, how to makes scones with starter, best blackberry scone recipe
Really great recipe tastes really good easy to make
★★★★★
So good! Made with fresh blackberries and frozen raspberries and they turned out amazing! I make these once a week now and I freeze the dough overnight so I can bake them fresh in the morning. Best scones I have ever tasted!
★★★★★
these were so delicious and easy! I made them with strawberries and used vegan butter and oat milk as I needed to make them dairy free and they still turned out great. best homemade scones I’ve made.
★★★★★
It was easy to make and turned out perfectly.
I used small organic blueberries because I couldn’t find small, firm blackberries. I covered the 9×9 with plastic wrap in fridge overnight (I never froze it) and cut and baked it in the morning. The egg wash helped the color and crisp.
Putting it together, I divided dough, placed half on top of blueberries in the pan, then made another layer of blueberries and dough. Really superb recipe and a great way to use sourdough starter discard.
★★★★★
Thanks Glad you liked it!
Incredible recipe. Very easy to follow and the best scones i’ve ever had. Still has the scone texture but a little moist and the flavor is amazing. Thank you 🙂
★★★★★
Thanks so much, great to hear! 🙌
Could I sub munk fruit for the sugar?
★★★★★
Great question, I’m not sure but I think so??? Will you let us know if you try it? Curious!
Does the starter have to be fed ?
No. You can use unfed discard ( as long as it has been maintained regularly).
If you’re just starting your starter, do you have to wait the full 6+ days to use this or can it be done earlier with the discard?
Wait the full 6 days.
So good and super easy! I used buttermilk and blue and blackberries. I also topped with a light brush if milk and turbinado sugar. I baked 5 extra minutes and let them rest in the oven for 5 minutes more. They are amazingly delish. Make sure to give each slice room to expand on the cookie sheet.
★★★★★
Great to hear and glad you liked it! 🙌
Hello! I am so excited to use this recipe as there are so many 5-star comments! I’m curious, though, as to how one might modify this recipe to be lemon-poppy seed instead of having fruit in it? I will make these with berries for the first time, but am looking forward to tweaking it if it really is as easy and delicious as ppl here make it sound! Thanks!
I think this is really easy- just add poppy seeds and lemon zest to the dough. 🙂
Made them yesterday, baked them today. They were wonderful and hearty (my started is 100% rye and the flavor was wonderful) I substituted 1/2 cup of flour with oats, and used frozen peaches + blueberries. I folded the fruit by hand into the dough over parchment paper, shaped into a disk, cut and froze the slices overnight. brushed with milk and covered with turbinado sugar before baking (vs glaze)
★★★★★
sounds perfect!
Absolutely delicious! I subbed the same measurement of flour for cup 4 cup gluten free flour (cloud9) and used my gluten free sourdough starter! It worked and they turned out fabulously airy and rose nicely! I also used frozen blackberries and white chocolate chips (omg yum!) 10/10! Thanks for this amazing recipe and so happy it worked gluten free!
★★★★★
WOW!! Love it BRynn! Thanks for sharing!
I am baking another batch today for someone special! They’re in the oven as we speak! Thanks again 😉
This was a very easy recipe. They were also quite tasty! My only question- I read the description and it said there were berries mixed in, however it doesn’t state that in the recipe. When would you mix in the berries? That was the only drawback is we didn’t have berries in the scones- but only the top. Still delicious- I just want to make them more so. Maybe just mix them into the batter rather than putting them in the bottom of the pan?
★★★★★
thanks Katie- I need to clarify the recipe, I usually do both. 🙂
Hi I followed recipe exactly for the scones but used raspberries! I found they expanded so so much in oven and was wondering what I could do differently next time! Maybe my sourdough starter was too active?
★★★★
I wonder! I’ll have to try this again!
The scones turned out fabulous! I followed the recipe except I used Huckleberries instead of the blackberries. (Just a 1 1/2 C. as a little goes a long way.) Another PNW favorite berry.
Mouth drooling deliciousness!
★★★★★
Huckleberries! LOVE IT!!!
I love these scones.
I always try a recipe the first time as close to as called for by the recipe as possible. I used frozen raspberries, put dough in freezer for about an hour before cutting and baking, and I made the glaze. I was pleased with the results.
I think the best part of this recipe is the dough base. I love the zest in it. Since first bake, I’ve made this with frozen mixed fruit, frozen raspberries, and frozen blueberries.
I do see what others talk about with having a tiny bit of a raw doughy texture under the berry after 20 minutes of cooking in the oven. I’ve bumped the time in the oven, I’ve also just taken them out and let them sit to cool and, honestly, they’re fine either way.
Were not huge sweets fans , so we don’t use the glaze.
A favorite variation is, instead of using fresh fruit on top, mix in dried cranberries. I eyeballed the amount, sorry. But I used orange flavored dried cranberries and baked for 18 minutes and they turned out amazing.
Thank you
This remains a favorite
★★★★★
Great to hear- thanks so much Margaret!
Thank you for the recipe. I did a strawberry scone with a strawberry lemon glaze on top. They were delicious.
★★★★★
Sounds yummy!
Made these scones with mixed frozen berries and they turned out amazing! I never made scones before but will be from now on.
★★★★★
Made these for mothers day and they were delicious! Used discard sourdough starter, and a mix of frozen raspberries and blueberries as that’s what I had on hand. Had to add a bit of extra milk to get the right texture, but definitely add it slowly, and I stopped when it was even still a bit crumbly (figured the sourdough in it would help it coalesce as it sat and it did). I froze it for closer to an hour and a half, and it was the perfect texture to cut right out of the freezer. Baked an extra five minutes after checking and they came out perfect. Will definitely be a repeat recipe, and will try veganizing it sometime in the future using mykonos butter and nut milk!
★★★★★
Thanks Autumn!!!
I saw the comment about adding a little extra milk. I did this also and probably added two to three tablespoons. Just go slowly.
★★★★★
Loved these!
★★★★★
Hi! loving your sourdough recipes. Currently working on my own sourdough starter using your post (things were going well, until they didn’t). I’m doing some troubleshooting now but, I have been using the discard (pancakes and biscuits).
I love this recipe. The scones look so lovely. Can you make this recipe with sourdough discard?
yes you can!
Great recipe. Needs longer bake time. I suggest 25 minutes. I substituted erythritol and monkfruit, latter added to milk, for sugar and skipped the glaze, just used powdered erythritol with fresh lemon zest. I used Costco frozen berry mix.
★★★★
Thanks so much- updated the recipe, appreciate this!
These collapsed into one giant scone while baking despite baking still frozen – not sure what I did wrong, but what a sad attempt at my first scone. I used the yogurt rather than sourdough starter. Any ideas what went wrong?
Hummmm- that is strange. So they didn’t puff up?
They puffed up a little but mostly grew sideways into one another in the oven. I had frozen them overnight, then waited about 30 mins before cutting. They still tasted absolutely amazing though, despite losing their shape. I’ll try them again – there’s always a chance I made a mistake. Thank you!
★★★★★
Hmmm.. this happened to me the first time I made them. Used yogurt instead of sourdough. I should have added the yogurt/milk slowly and kept the dough more stiff.
My second attempt with sourdough was more stiff–good tasting yet have to set the temperature slightly slower unless the scones are completely defrosted. The bottom of scones got too dark.
Delicious! Ours needed to bake longer (maybe b.c the sourdough starter and frozen berries made it wetter on top?) But amazing flavors and texture!
★★★★★
They need more baking time. I baked them for thirty minutes, then left the pan in the oven for another ten-twelve after it was turned off, and the top was raw dough.
★★★★
Do you feed your starter beforehand for this recipe or can I use my discard that I have been storing in the fridge without feeding it prior?
It is supposed to work with unfed discard.
Would it be okay to freeze this dough overnight? I found myself making these later in the day than I wanted and would love them warm in the morning 🙂
★★★★★
Yes!