Sourdough Scones

These sourdough biscuits have become my go to for all my biscuit endeavors and happily popular with readers too! I am always looking for ways to use up my discard, not because it’s there (it’s always there) but also because it imparts such great flavor into any bake. 

To be clear, the scones don’t taste like a sourdough loaf, but they have this extra depth of flavor – you know it if you bake with discard – to me it feels like I’m eating something from an artisan bakery, like a lot of thought went into the flavor of this bake. So yes, I’d like that in my scones too! 

Recipe Notes

The sourdough biscuit recipe was my starting point for these scones. What is really the difference between a scone and a biscuit? I suppose it depends who you ask;, another might say a biscuit IS a scone (but I might argue that if so, they haven’t tried a true southern scone tbh), and one might say a scone is just a sweet biscuit. The latter was the thread I followed to get us here; starting by adding more sugar to the recipe and adding vanilla. 

But I found that wasn’t quite enough; with just those minor changes gave me scones that were good but not, wow I want to eat this every day (always the goal I’m chasing with my recipes). So I took a feature from these orange almond scones (and these blueberry almond scones) and added some almond flour; the flour adds more moisture and flavor to the scones, and since it’s morning, gives them a bit more nutrition. 

Also, you may note that unlike many of my scone recipes, this one doesn’t have an egg, the discard does the job the egg does by giving it moisture. We’re also rubbing the butter into the dough rather than leaving big pats to melt in the oven, so the scone will be softer and more moist. 

The result is a scone that sits perfectly between the ‘buttery but still moist’, flavorful but not overly dense. Plus, there’s a million ways to customize these! 

Recipe Ingredients 

Flour: all purpose flour of a low to medium protein content. Bread flour would make these too dense and dry, cake flour could work but you’d probably need to add more of it to give the scones more structure. 

Almond flour: ground blanched almonds. You can use almond meal here too. 

Baking powder: Leavening that helps the scones rise tall. 

Sugar: Fine granulated sugar. You can reduce this if you like but the scones will be a bit more dry. Brown sugar would also work. 

Butter: Unsalted and cold, very cold. Any butterfat percentage will work. 

Discard: unfed starter. 

Milk: whole milk. If you’re using dairy free butter, you can swap in almond or soy milk here. 

Vanilla: pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. 

Salt: fine sea salt. If using table salt, halve the amount. 

How to make Sourdough Scones 

Whisk together the dry ingredients: 

Rub in the softened butter: work it in until all the flour is coated in butter and there are no big chunks of butter. 

Stir in the wet ingredients: 

Fold the dough: 

Flatten, slice and stack, then flatten again: 

Slice: 

Freeze, then bake: 

Cool, then frost.

Flavoring the scones 

I wanted to give you a very basic vanilla scone recipe here so that you could do with it what you liked: add lemon and blueberries? It works. Add orange and poppy seeds? It works. Chocolate and cinnamon? Works too! Here’s how I’d treat each flavor or add-in:

Zest: Before you whisk the dry ingredients together, start by placing the sugar in the bowl and zesting the lemon/lime/orange over it then rubbing it into the zest with your fingers. This releases the oils for better flavor. 

Spices: These can go in with the dry ingredients, whisk them with the flour & etc. 

Extracts: Almond, lemon, rose water, etc. can go in with the wet ingredients. 

Add-Ins: Berries, chocolate chips, nuts…etc., should go in before the wet ingredients are added or, if you’re trying to avoid overmixing them in (blueberries tend to burst when overmixed for example), add them in after you stir in the wet and before you start ‘folding’ the dough.  

Storing & Making Sourdough Scones Ahead of Time 

I always freeze my scones before baking so some ‘make ahead’ is already built into the recipe. If you want to make them a day or more ahead of time, you can flash freeze them on a plate for 20 minutes until solid, then place them in an airtight container and freeze for longer. I might thaw them just a bit before baking but you want to make sure the butter does not soften before they go into the oven. 

Once the sourdough scones are baked, leave them on the counter the day of. Overnight, I’d tuck them into a container (not airtight if they are glazed). 

Sourdough Scones Recipe

Sourdough Scones

Moist and flavorful sourdough scones; a great way to get that lovely sourdough flavor in a buttery, vanilla flecked scone. 

Yields: 8 scones

5 from 3 votes

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Ingredients

Scones

• 220g or 1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 60g or ½ cup almond flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 50g or ¼ cup fine granulated sugar
• 113g or 1 stick butter unsalted and softened
• 50g discard unfed starter
• 80g or ⅓ cup heavy cream or milk
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ½ tsp fine sea salt

Glaze

• 130g or 1 cup powdered sugar preferably made with tapioca starch
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
• Pinch fine sea salt

Method

• In a large bowl whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Slice the butter into pats then rub it into the dry mixture until the butter is in little bits and completely covered by the flour.
• Separately, whisk together the discard, milk and vanilla. Add it to the bowl with the flour and butter mixture and stir until the wet ingredients are covered by the dry.
• Switch to using your hand, folding the dough over itself and gently squeezing it. Repeat until you have a shaggy ball shape of dough.
• Transfer the dough onto a floured surface. Using your hands, flatten the dough into a 7 inch disc. Slice the dough into quarters then stack them and flatten again into a 7-8 inch diameter circle.
• Slice the dough into half, then quarters and then into eighths. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet, quite close together (but not touching). Set in the freezer for an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 400 F. When the oven is ready, take the scones out of the freezer and set them on the middle rack of the oven. Immediately turn the heat down to 375 F.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes, until golden all over the edges and there are no ‘wet’ or doughy bits visible in the middle of the scones.
• Once the scones are cool, make the glaze by whisking together all the ingredients. If the glaze is thick, add more cream or milk. If it’s thin, add more powdered sugar.
• Keep at room temperature. Once the glaze is set, you can place them in an airtight container to store overnight.

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