Growing up I loved scones. And by scones, I mean these Utah Scones: fried pieces of sweet bread dough that we would douse in honey or dust with powdered sugar. One night when I was in middle school, it was pronounced that we had scones in the house. Imagine my horror when I discovered that these scones resembled triangular biscuits. HORROR.
And then I tasted one and all was forgiven. Sweet but not too sweet, melt-in-your mouth texture, flaky, buttery, and crumbly in the best possible way. I adapted this recipe from Pam Anderson at Three Many Cooks. I loved the scone base, but wanted to switch up the flavors, thus these Lemon Poppy Seed Scones were born! They are tender and delicious, with the bright addition of lemon in both the dough and the glaze. They are perfect for brunch, serving to visitors, or enjoying after a meal.
Ingredients Needed
This is just a preview of ingredients and method, keep scrolling for full printable recipe.
Scones
- All purpose flour – Be sure you’re measuring your flour by scooping it into your measuring cup and leveling it off with a knife. If you scoop your flour, you run the risk of a dense, dry finished product.
- Granulated sugar
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Table salt
- Poppy seeds
- Unsalted butter – This recipe is designed for real butter. Substitute at your own risk! You’ll notice this recipe calls for frozen butter. That’s because we’re going to grate it straight from the freezer so it holds together in the dough and creates light, fluffy layers in the finished scone.
- Sour cream – Use full fat sour cream for the best texture.
- Egg
- Lemon zest – Freshly zested!
Glaze
- Lemon juice – Freshly squeezed and strained, please! Avoid using bottled lemon juice here.
- Melted butter
- Powdered sugar
How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Scones
- First you’re going to combine some all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and poppy seeds.
- To that we add some grated frozen butter. This is mixed gently because you don’t want a cohesive dough here. The pieces of butter will melt as the scones cook and create the soft, fluffy layers we’re looking for.
- Next you’ll whisk up and egg with some full-fat sour cream and drizzle that over your flour mixture then combine with a fork and press together with your hands to create a dough. It may seem dry, but keep working and it will come together.
- Then you’ll just transfer that dough ball to a lightly floured surface and roll into a disk, cut into 8 triangles, separate and bake.
- While the scones are baking you will whisk up a super simple glaze of lemon juice, powdered sugar, and butter. Let the sones cool a little and then top with the glaze. If you glaze while they are still warm, you can spread the glaze thin over the whole top and let it drip down the sides a little, which is my personal favorite. If you wait until they are completely cool, you can pipe on some thick glaze squiggles that will hold their shape on the top.
Storing and Other Tips
- Store cooled scones in an airtight container at room temperature and enjoy within a day or two for best results.
- For longer storage, freeze unglazed scones for up to 3 months. Thaw and glaze before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Shape and cut the scones, then cover and refrigerate overnight. Bake directly from the refrigerator, adding a minute or two to the baking time if needed.
Frozen butter stays cold and holds its shape as it’s worked into the flour. Those little bits of solid butter in the dough are what create the tender, flakey texture of the finished scones. If you forgot to freeze your butter, you can always use a pastry cutter or a couple of knives to cut refrigerated butter into the dough. Freezing and grating just makes this step much less labor intensive!
Yes. Divide the dough into two portions, roll into disks, and cut into small scones. Begin checking for doneness several minutes earlier than you would for large scones, as they will cook more quickly.
Lemon Poppy Seed Scones
Ingredients
Scones
- 2 cups all-purpose flour lightly spooned into measuring cups and leveled with a knife
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon table salt decrease or omit if using salted butter
- 1 teaspoon poppy seeds
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter frozen
- ½ cup full-fat sour cream
- 1 large egg
- zest of 1 lemon
Glaze
- ¼ cup strained lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- 1 ⅓ cup powdered sugar
Instructions
Scones
- Preheat oven to 400℉. Place baking rack in the middle-low position. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and poppy seeds. Add the lemon zest and whisk together again.
- Grate the frozen butter (a food processor makes that job super easy, but you can also just do it on a regular box grater). Toss the grated butter into the flour mixture and combine it with your fingers until it resembles coarse meal. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and egg. Drizzle it over the flour mixture and then toss the mixture together with a fork until everything appears moistened. Gently press the dough into a ball–it will take some time and some parts of the dough will be more moist than other parts, but continue pressing together until it forms a ball.
- Lightly flour a surface (you can use the lined baking sheet if you want) and place the dough on top of the floured surface. Press into an 8″ disc and cut into equal wedges with a butter knife. Separate the wedges and place them evenly on the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-17 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Glaze
- While the scones are cooling, whisk together the glaze ingredients until smooth. Place in a Ziploc bag and drizzle over the scones. You can do it while they’re still warm so it spreads over the top and sides of the scone (which I kind of love) or you can wait until they’re completely cool and drizzle squigglies over the scones. Makes 8 scones.
Questions & Reviews
Oh my, these are like heaven! Thank you!!
So I went to make these this morning, and then realized my sour cream had been left on the counter all night. So I substituted it with the only ingredients I had that were somewhat similar. I thinned out some cream cheese with milk. The scones actually turned out delicious and looked just like the picture! Haha! Sweet! Thanks for the recipe!
I just made these this morning. They are wonderful!!!! Not too sweet so perfect for morning! Thank you!!
Made these tonight, they turned out amazing! I have made my fair share of scones before but none ever called for an egg, so I was curious how they would turn out. Definitely not disappointed! I did the whole thing in the food processor; first pulsed all the dry ingredients together to combine, then added the butter (I just diced mine right out of the fridge, didn’t bother freezing or grating it), then the wet ingredients. I also added the juice of half a lemon right to the batter. It came together really fast and easy and I had no trouble getting it to form into a disk. Can’t wait to experiment with other flavors using this recipe as a base; I have made oatmeal scones by replacing half the flour of my standard scone recipe with oatmeal, which I might try with this recipe sometime. 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Kate, these look super scrumptious! Great job! I’m with ya on the warm glaze. Thanks for sharing.
The Utah scones are indeed, fried bread, my grandmother always used to save bread dough for scones whenever she made bread. Now its Rhodes frozen bread dough for the lazy part of me….The sweet biscuit-like scones (pronounced with a short “o” vowel- “scons”)are from England. I love both!!
What if you substituted Greek yogurt for the sour cream? I do it all the time in other recipes.
I haven’t tried it, but I’m willing to bet it would work just fine! Let us know how it turns out!
This was my first time making scones and it was a major success!!! It totally made my family’s Valentine’s Day! Thank you! 🙂
These are my absolutle favorite type of pastry. I used to get Lemon Poppy Seed scones on my way to class in college and it just made the day better. Thank you for posting this recipe! If you ever make blueberry ones, please share those too 🙂
I’m 99.9% sure you could leave out the poppy seeds and lemon (or heck, leave ’em in if you want!) and then just add 1/2-3/4 cup chopped blueberries. Blueberry scones are one of my FAVORITE things in the universe! 🙂
I have everything in my pantry except full fat sour cream…..I have light sour cream. Do you think that would work? I *really* want to make these scones right now….lol!
I can’t say for sure, but I *imagine* it would be fine! Just don’t hunt me down and kill me if they’re dry! 🙂
Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly! We get scones from this little bakery in town and I always find them really dry, but my husband loves them, so I’m sure that even if yours turn out that way he will think they are great. No worries! 🙂
PS I have never heard of fried scones, but they sound so yummy!
Rebecca, I always use low fat substitutes and don’t have any complaints, in fact a lot of compliments. You could also use plain greek yogurt, it would even be better for you and no fat! with lots of yumminess! Good Luck!
These scones were delicious! The low fat sour cream worked great! Angie, thanks for the tip about the greek yogurt too! 🙂