Ridiculously Easy Lemon Blueberry Scones (with free printable labels for gifting) (2024)

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Bursting with sweet, juicy blueberries, these melt-in-your-mouth Lemon Blueberry Scones are beyond delicious and ridiculously easy to make!

There's something about blueberries in baked goods that just seems to be a match made in heaven. Our Copycat Starbucks Blueberry Muffins, our Honey Glazed Blueberry Bran Muffins and our Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake are some of the most popular recipes on the blog. These Lemon Blueberry Scones are sure to become a favorite too!

Ridiculously Easy!

You might be asking "Can scones really be easy?"

Yes, they can!

Years ago, I discovered an amazing little trick that made the process of putting together biscuits and scones super easy. But before we get to that, let me explain the secret to melt-in-your-mouth scones (and tender, flaky crazy-delicious biscuits).

It starts with cold butter which is "cut" into a dry mixture of flour, leavening agents, salt and sometimes sugar. This cutting technique is frequently done with a pastry cutter, two knives, a fork OR... some people use their fingers to rub the butter into the dry ingreidnets. The result of this "cutting" or "rubbing" process is small lumps of butter distributed throughout the dry ingredients. When some type of wet ingredient, usually buttermilk or cream, is added to the mix, the little bits of cold butter stay suspended in the dough.

THEN, when the scone or biscuit dough hits the hot oven, the water in the butter evaporates, creating little pockets of steam. As the steam escapes, the scones rise up and create a light, tender, flaky, super delicious finished product.

No big deal for those "in the know"

This cutting technique isn't rocket science... actually for chefs or little southern grandmothers who make biscuits every day, it's a piece of cake. But to me and many others, the whole cutting process is a bit of a pain. Because of that, I didn't attempt biscuits or scones very often in the past. But all that changed a while back when I was flipping through a Cook's Illustrated magazine.

A brilliant technique!

I came across an article about biscuits that forever changed my wanna-be-a-biscuit-maker life.Instead of cutting or rubbing butter into the flour Cook's Illustrated shared a technique that was revolutionary to me.

How does it work? Simply melt a stick of butter in the microwave (or stovetop if you're without a microwave) and place a cup of heavy cream in the freezer. While the butter's cooling a bit and the cream is getting nice and cold, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Once the cream is nicely chilled, remove it from the freezer and stir in the melted butter with a fork. As you stir, little lumps of butter will form and be suspended in the cream. Then just add the cream mixture to the dry ingredients in the bowl, stir and... VOILA! The same little bits of butter will now be incorporated throughout the dough, without all that cutting or rubbing!

Check it out

So much easier... actually ridiculously easy! I loved this technique so much that I've been running with it and using it for all kinds of biscuit and scone recipes. Our readers responded so positively to this easy method of making delicious biscuits that I was prompted to create a whole category of recipes called Ridiculously Easy. All of our scone and biscuit recipes are in this collection but there are also one-bowl cakes, cookies and all sorts of other easy, delicious recipes.

You can read all about these Ridiculously Easy recipes in this post and check out the whole collection here, but my nutshell definition of these fabulous recipes is "recipes that make you look like a kitchen rock star with minimal effort on your part." So there you have it!

See for yourself!

We created a video to demonstrate this easy technique so you can see just how easy these Lemon Blueberry Scones come together. Check it out:

Options

There are a number of different options when making these Lemon Blueberry Scones. You can scoop them up, as pictured in this post. You can also dump the dough out onto a work surface and form it into a 1½-2-inch tall disc, then cut the disc into wedges for more traditional shaped scones. Another option is to pat the dough into a rectangle, again 1½-2 inches tall, and cut circular scones with a biscuit cutter.

Another variable for these scones is the finishing touches. I like to brush the scones with a little butter and sprinkle them with cane sugar, which is just slightly coarser than regular granulated sugar.

If I'm feeling a little fancy, I combine a cup of powdered sugar with some lemon juice and milk (or cream) and make a glaze.

You could also sprinkle them with powdered sugar for a pretty presentation. All of these options are delicious, you get to choose!

One last option

Give them away! These Lemon Blueberry Scones are so delicious that I would be tempted to eat WAY too many if I didn't give most of them away. We've created a pretty label for gifting (pictured below).

Feel free to request these free printable labels in the comment section below. We'll email you the PDFs for the labels as well instructions on how to use them.

Blueberry season

Scott and I visited a beautiful blueberry farm yesterday, not far from where we live, here in the mountains of North Carolina. Although the berries weren't quite ready, the bushes were hanging heavy and the proprietor of the farm promised LOTS ripe berries sometime in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, I've been picking up beautiful blueberries from states south of us and they've been sweet, plump and super juicy.

Don't let the season pass without making a batch of these fabulous, Ridiculously Easy Lemon Blueberry Scones!

Café Tips for making these Ridiculously Easy Lemon Blueberry Scones

• I like to use fresh blueberries to make these scones. Frozen berries tend to bleed more into the batter, but if you decide to use frozen, keep them in the freezer until right before adding them to the dough.
• If your cream mixture doesn’t form the “clumps” or “globules”, your cream probably wasn’t cold enough. You can stick the whole mixture in the freezer for another 5-8 minutes, then stir with a fork and you should see the clumps.
• Don't overmix the dough, but make sure all of the flour at the bottom of the bowl is incorporated before forming the scones.
• Be sure to refrigerate or freeze the scones for at least 15 minutes before baking. This helps the butter to chill again which creates tender scones. It will also help the scones to keep their shape.
• The moisture content of different kinds of butter and flour, as well as humidity in the air, can cause scones to spread out while baking, If that happens, here's a little trick to make them look more attractive. When you remove them from the oven, they will still be somewhat soft and flexible. You can use two soup spoons or two small metal spatulas to push them back into a nice circular shape. Just place the inner surfaces of the spoons (or the flat bottom edges of the metal spatulas) on either side of the scones and gently coerce them into a prettier shape. Once the scones cool, they will be firm, so if you decide to do this, be sure to do it while they're hot out of the oven.
• You can prep these scones several hours ahead of time. Just scoop them up onto your sheet pan, cover them with plastic wrap, and pop the whole tray into the refrigerator. When ready to bake, transfer to the oven and bake as directed. They will take a minute or two longer to bake.
• You can also make these Lemon Blueberry Scones and freeze them, unbaked. Pull as many as you want out of the freezer and bake as directed, adding about 3-5 minutes extra to the total baking time. You want to look for a pretty golden brown color.
• I use a medium-large (4 tablespoons) retractable ice cream/cookie scooper to portion out consistent-sized scones.A medium-large scoop will yield about 12 scones. If you use a larger scoop the yield will be closer to 8.
• Scoops are also super helpful for lots of other recipes. I like this set of scoopers that includes small, medium and medium-large sizes (I use the biggest one in this set for my scones which is 4 tablespoons).
• I spray my cookie scoop with a non-stick cooking spray which makes scooping up the scones really easy.
• This recipe calls for lining a sheet pan with parchment paper. This is optional but is nice for easy cleanup. I love these pre-cut parchment paper sheets. They come in a flat box for easy storage, are perfect for cookies, scones, biscuits, cake, etc. and a box will last forever.
• This batter is quite thick. You’ll want a sturdy spatula or wooden spoon to stir it. At first, it might seem like all the flour mixture will not be incorporated, but keep going. All of a sudden it will be all mixed in. Don’t be tempted to add more liquid.
• If you decide to glaze these scones, as pictured above, you may not need all of the icing and some of it will drip onto the foil or sheet pan.

Thought for the day:

But the Lord is faithful,
and He will strengthen you
and protect you from the evil one.
1 Thessalonians 3:3

What we're listening to for inspiration:

The Goodness of God

If you enjoy this recipe, please come back and leave a star rating and review! It’s so helpful to other readers to hear your results, adaptations and ideas for variations.