Cherry Scones Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Cherry Scones lightly flavoured with Almonds make the perfect breakfast or afternoon treat. Flakey on the inside, golden and crunchy on the outside and loaded with fresh cherries, you’ll love these tasty scones.

Prep Time15

Cook Time25

Total Time40

Course: Snack

Cuisine: British

Servings: scones

Calories: 262kcal

Author: Emma Duckworth

Equipment

Large mixing bowl
Baking Tray

Ingredients

375 g self raising flour plus 1 tablespoon extra to toss with cherries
12 g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon fine salt
210 g double cream (heavy cream)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
90 g unsalted butter cold
230 g fresh cherries pitted and coarsely chopped
15 g demerara sugar
1 tablespoon flaked almonds
50 g dark chocolate (optional) melted

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Sift dry ingredients together. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Into a large mixing bowl, sift in your dry ingredients; flour, baking powder and salt. Add in the sugar and stir together.
Whisk wet ingredients together. In a bowl, whisk together the cream, egg, and vanilla extract. Once whisked, set aside one tablespoon of the egg mixture- this will be your egg wash to be used later.
Add butter to flour. Add the chopped butter and using your fingertips, toss the pieces until they are separated and coated with flour. Using your fingertips, rub the flour and butter together until it looks like breadcrumbs, with some larger pieces the size of peas. (Alternatively, use a pastry cutter).
Combine wet with the dry ingredients. Make a well in the dry mix and pour in the whisked egg and milk mixture into the centre. Use a fork to stir until the mixture just starts to come together to form a dough. It will still be very shaggy at this point and feel quite sticky. If necessary, use your hands to lightly bring it all together incorporating the dry flour left at the bottom of the bowl.
Coat the cherries in flour. Into the bowl your chopped cherries are in, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of flour and toss to coat the cherries. This will soak up a little of the juices and stop them from staining the dough quite so much!
Add the cherries to the dough. Tip the floured cherries into the dough and very gently mix them in with your fingertips. Then start to bring the dough together into a lump by pressing the dough together. Tip out onto a lightly floured work surface.
Bring the dough together. Once on the work surface, continue to bring the dough together with floured hands by pressing it together. Fold it in half and then press flat. Do this again if needed to make the dough smoother. This incorporates air into the dough and makes it smoother without having to knead the dough with the risk of over working it. Gently flatten it out with your hands into a disc.
Shape into two discs. Using a bench scraper or a sharp knife, cut the dough in two.
Shape each half into a round disc, and flour your hands if you need to help shape it. Flatten the disc until it's 2 cm (1 inch) thick.
Prepare scone rounds and refrigerate. Add the two discs onto the prepared baking tray. Refrigerate the tray for 30 minutes or freeze it for 15 minutes. Whilst the scones are chilling, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F)
Brush each disc with the remaining cream. Either sprinkle the top with demerara sugar or sprinkle flaked almonds over the top. You can do both on each disc if you like! Cut each disc into 6 wedges using a sharp knife.
Bake. Bake for 25-35 minutes until the scones are risen and the tops are golden brown.
(The time will depend on the thickness of your scone rounds. The thicker they are, the longer they will need to bake. Check at the 25-minute mark and add on more time if necessary.)
Once baked, remove from the oven and drizzle melted dark chocolate over the top. Serve immediately. Best eaten the day they are made.

Notes

Step-by-Step Photos: My blog post includes helpful step-by-step photos to help guide you through making this recipe.

To store: Scones are best served fresh and slightly warm. To store them, wrap them in plastic wrap or place them in a ziplock bag to prevent them from drying out and retain their moisture. Leave at room temperature. They should last 1 to 2 days.

To freeze: Once baked scones are cooled, wrap them immediately in plastic wrap or place them in a freezer-safe container and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature and reheat in the oven or microwave.

TIP 1: Use cold ingredients and cold hands. The aim is to keep the butter as cold as possible when making the dough so that it melts when it hits the high heat, not before, and creates that uber-flakey interior we're after.

TIP 2: Don't overwork the dough. Pressing the dough together with your hands rather than over-kneading will prevent the activation of gluten and in turn prevent tough scones when baked. It will help with our end goal of flaky layers!

TIP 3: Refrigerate the dough before baking. This allows the flour to hydrate, the gluten to relax, the butter to re-chill and harden and baking powder to get to work. All this helps in creating soft, flaky scones.

Variations of cherries: If fresh cherries aren’t in season then substitute with frozen (same quantity as fresh), dried cherries 90g (¾ cup), or glacé cherries (60g (4oz).

If you don’t have self-raising flour: Add 3.5 teaspoons of baking powder to 375g/3 cups plain (all-purpose) flour and stir together. Continue as per the recipe instructions and the other ingredients, including adding the stated baking powder.

Nutrition