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These lemon cranberry scones have the tart flavors of lemon in a sweet-based scone with zippy cranberry bites – scone perfection! The secret to making the best scones, of course, is my Best Scones Ever recipe, bar none. That recipe makes the flakiest, most decadent buttery scones that you will ever eat.
Lemon Cranberry Scones
I took my basic scone recipe and turned it into a lemon cranberry one with a few simple alterations. Using the lemon juice doesn’t affect the crispy crunch of the scones, they are not cake-like scones at all, but crispy buttery ones. If you want more cake-like scones, try my apple scones.
Fresh Lemon and Dried Sweetened Cranberries
A fresh lemon is a must for this recipe as you need the zest from an entire lemon to flavor the dough. Then you use all of the juice from that lemon in the recipe as well. I use sweetened dried cranberries in this recipe, as I find them tart enough and flavorful instead of the usual raisins.
Using Fresh Cranberries
You can try fresh cranberries in this recipe, I would sprinkle a heavy-handed portion of sanding sugar on top of the scones before baking to offset how sour the fresh berries are, however.
How to Make Lemon Scones
This scone recipe is a large one and yields 18 scones instead of the usual 12. They still get eaten just as fast in my household! For more detailed instructions read the recipe card below. Step 4 outlines how you will cut the dough into the 18 pieces.
- Whisk all your dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Add your butter and cut in until it’s crumbly.
- Mix the sour cream, milk, and egg into the dry ingredients. Once it’s mixed a bit, add in the cranberries.
- Divide into three balls, then flatten into 6-inch disks. Cut each piece into 6 triangles.
- Bake in a 350°F oven until they are golden brown, from 15-20 minutes
Keep Mixing
The reason these are crispy and buttery instead of cakey scones is that the dough is dry and has a lot of butter. The dough WILL come together if you keep mixing. Add a little bit more milk if needed, but it should JUST come together enough to form into disks and slice.
More Delicious Scone & Biscuit Recipes
How To Store These Scones
We tend to eat these fast, for breakfast a few days in a row so we keep them in a closed container at room temperature for 3-4 days. These can be frozen as well, simply place them in a freezer-safe bag and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature and eat them when ready. Don’t store them in the fridge as they will turn into hard rocks!
Happy baking!
Love,
Karlynn
Lemon Cranberry Scones
Ingredients
Sour Cream Mixture
- 2/3 cup sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Dry Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 1 large lemon
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup dried sweetened cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix the baking soda and the sour cream in a large liquid measuring cup and set aside.
- Whisk all your dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add your butter and cut in until it's crumbly.
- Take your lemon and grate the peel off of it into the flour mixture.
- Cut your lemon in half, and squeeze all the juice out, picking out the seeds. You should get almost a 1/4 cup of lemon juice.
- Add in enough milk to bring it to 1/3 of a cup. Don’t worry if the milk curdles.
- Mix the sour cream, milk, and egg into the dry ingredients. Once it's mixed a bit, add in the cranberries. Divide into three balls, then flatten into 6-inch wide disks. Cut each piece into 6 triangles.
- Bake the scones until they are golden brown, from 18-23 minutes depending on your oven. The bottoms will be golden brown and the tops hard and crispy.
- Remove and eat warm or cool.
Notes
- This is a dry scone mixture, that’s how they end up crispy and buttery. Keep mixing until the ingredients come together.
Nutrition
Susan Melton says
Your recipe enticed me to make scones. I’m so glad I did! Great recipe and my husband liked them so much he couldn’t stop eating them. Great recipe. Thanks so much for sharing.
Susan Melton
p.s. I plan to share your recipe with my daughter who is a wonderful chef!
lynda says
I have the same question as Deelle. I do not see any mention of milk. How much should we use.?
Thanks so much.
Kimberly says
After squeezing the lemon, you should have about 1/4 cup lemon juice. You then add enough milk to make 1/3 cup total (of lemon juice + milk).
DeeElle says
I’d like to try these, but I have a question. The blog and instructions mentions milk, but there is no milk mentioned in the ingredients. How much milk should be included? Thanks,
Kimberly says
First squeeze the lemon which should give you about 1/4 cup juice. To this add enough milk to make 1/3 cup total (juice + milk).
Marina says
I have been making these scones for many years! They are the absolute best! Everyone who tries them loves them too. I follow the recipe exactly…no need to change a thing! Thank you!
Louise says
I found the dough a bit too dry/crumbly therefore difficult to make into 6″ disks so I wound up adding a tad more milk (actually I used 1/2 & 1/2 cream as I only had almond milk), and this did the trick. Other than that the results were very yummy!
Shelly Redmond says
I buy this great Lemon Cranberry scones from a bakery in a local Market which I love! I’ve tried to replicate these scones without success until I tried your recipe! Its perfect and they are equal if not even better than the ones I was buying!
Delicious
Thanks for sharing!
Helen Gill says
The text says to cut up the butter into the flour. The list of ingredients lists margarine, NOT BUTTER. Which is it?
Jesse says
Love this!!! I’ve made this a couple of times already and they always turn out perfect. After making this the first time and loving it, I tried another scones recipe with strawberries by someone else, and was so disappointed with the outcome. The batter was so wet I had to add almost 1 more cup of flour to it and the finish product was yuk.
This recipe is perfect!!! My kids love them and my friend who loves scones, requests for me to bake them. Thank you so much! I will make this my basis for scones always!
Heidi says
This is by far my favourite scone recipe! I’ve used it multiple times with different fruit and they’ve all turned out divine. Thank you so much for posting it!
Heather says
Hi there, Karlynn,
I just discovered this delicious recipe after many years of baking and I noticed your comment about lemons and your” trouble” with squeezing and seeds. {These are delicious and perfect scones, may I first say! The best over many years of searching!} I have made several batches over the last few days even, and my family is asking ” when next?”
When I squeeze lemons, where possible, I use a loose tea strainer-the kind you can lay over a tea cup. I grate the lemon first for the rind, then I roll that lemon, or lemons lightly on the counter so the juice comes out more easily, cut it in half, then squeeze it over the strainer into the measuring cup or just a cup. I know that I can go through chasing the pits with a fork and getting rid of them that way, but this is easier and generally works well. Hope this helps.. PS. My husband has “offered” to be the cleaner- upper -when I bake these scones!