Irish Soda Bread Scones (2024)

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Everything you love about Irish soda bread in scone form! These Irish soda bread scones are buttery, flaky, and studded with soft raisins. – enjoy them hot from the oven with your favorite jam!

If you don’t feel like baking an entire huge loaf of Irish soda bread this year, I’ve got you covered!

Irish soda bread in MINI scone form is possibly even better than the traditional bread, there I said it.

We’re talking flaky, buttery scones bursting with soft raisins, a hint of orange zest, and ALL the things you love about the classic St. Patrick’s Day bread in scone form!

We adore these scones with every ounce of our being. We’ve baked so many batches the past few weeks and each batch just seems to get progressively better!

Not only that but it’s purely insane how easy they are. They taste like they came from an expensive bakery, but they use such humble ingredients and come together in MINUTES!

These Irish Soda Bread Scones feature…

• An incredibly light, flaky, and tender buttermilk scone base
• Soft, plump raisins and fragrant orange zest
• Several make ahead options so you can have these scones at their freshest

Making the Irish Soda Bread Scones

(scroll to the bottom of the post for the full recipe!)

Ingredients You’ll Need

• Basic Baking Ingredients – flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, an egg, and sugar.
• Butter – you want your butter as cold as possible for this recipe. More on that below.
• Buttermilk – this is a must-have ingredient for these scones. I don’t recommend subbing regular milk for the buttermilk!
• Orange Zest – adds just a slight hint of orange flavor that’s so delicious.
• Caraway Seeds – the caraway is optional, but we love the sharp, nutty flavor they give these scones!
• Raisins – you can also use currants for this recipe if you want to go the more traditional route.

Tips For Scone Baking

• Cold butter is a must – scones rely on cold fat to build the flaky layers while they bake so it’s important that your butter is as cold as possible.
  • I recommend grating your butter on a box grater and throwing it in the freezer for 30 minutes. Bonus: this also makes it easier to work into the dough!
• Do not overwork the dough – over stirring and kneading of the dough will cause gluten to form resulting in a tough scone.
  • For best results, work the dough until it only just comes together and use a light hand when forming and cutting the scones out.
• Chill scones before baking – like I said before, you want everything as COLD as possible prior to baking.
  • I like to stick the pan of scones in the freezer 15-20 minutes before baking.
• Bake scones at a high temp – 400F for 15-18 minutes is all it will take for the scones to fully bake.

Make Ahead Options

Baked scones may be frozen up to 2 months. Cool scones completely and wrap well before freezing.

Unbaked scones may be stored in fridge up to 3 days. Arrange formed scones on baking sheet and wrap well before refrigerating. Bake as directed.

Unbaked scones may be frozen up to 1 month. Arrange formed scones on baking sheet and wrap well before freezing. Allow to thaw at room temperature 30 minutes before baking as directed.

How to Serve Scones

Serve these scones warm from the oven if possible! They also reheat perfectly in about 30 seconds in the microwave.

While these scones are amazing by themselves, we also love them split open and spread with jam and extra butter! < extra but so very worth it.

Start a new St. Patrick’s day breakfast tradition this year with these scones! I promise you sadly will not have any leftovers and you’ll be begged to make another batch!

More scone recipes I think you’ll love!

• Glazed Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Scones
• Coconut Key Lime Pie Scones
• Blueberries ‘n’ Cream Almond Scones