Cranberry Orange Scones are a delicious fall breakfast pastry recipe.
Recipe Inspiration:
When Sunday afternoon rolls around each week, I’m jotting down ideas for the week’s menu while I’m sitting on the couch watching football. YES, I watch football! It’s my weird, crazy pleasure to watch football on Sunday afternoons while I make some new recipes in my kitchen. I can barely see the TV from the kitchen, but the roar of the crowd riles me up and the ref’s announcements keep me posted on game progress. While things are cooking, I sneak over to the couch to snuggle in a blanket and scour my cookbooks and magazines for new recipe ideas.
Planning breakfast for the following weekend is always on the agenda. Baking something like muffins or coffee cake or pastries for a special weekend breakfast is one of my favorite things to do! So these Cranberry Orange Scones were definitely going to be on the radar for one of our fall weekends.
I knew that after Halloween I’d start craving cranberries (and hoped that everyone else would too). Cranberry and orange are such a classic and wonderful combination in cranberry sauce, and they work beautifully together in scones too.
How to store fresh cranberries:
The best thing about buying a bag of fresh cranberries is that the leftovers freeze beautifully. I’ve had fresh cranberries in my freezer since last fall, and they’re still perfect and fresh when you defrost them. Buy a bag or two while you can get them, and just store them in your freezer!
How to make Cranberry Orange Scones:
After putting the dough together, I bake my scones in one giant round like this (wedges cut before baking). They might be a tiny bit undercooked in the center when you pull them out of the oven, so you can gently pull the wedges away from the center and let them bake for a few more minutes, and then they will be perfect and good to go. It’s actually better to pull them all out from the center before baking if your dough isn’t too crumbly. But either way works just fine.
This recipe turns out a tender scone that is not at all dry. We rub a little bit of soft REAL butter on warm cranberry orange scones and top them with a drizzle of honey too. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
Cranberry Orange Scones
Ingredients
SCONES:
- 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (see NOTES below)
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated white sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) salted butter, slightly softened
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- 2 teaspoons grated fresh orange zest
- 1 cup buttermilk
TOPPING:
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper or a silpat mat.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
- Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour mixture until it becomes a course crumb texture (use two knives or a pastry blender). Stir in the cranberries, nuts and orange zest. Add the buttermilk and mix with a fork until moistened.
- Gather the dough into a ball and place on a floured board. Roll or pat into a circle ¾-inch thick.
- Cut the round into 12 pie-shaped pieces. Place on the prepared baking sheet 1½-inches apart. You can transfer the whole circle of dough onto the baking sheet with a pizza peel or bench scraper, and then gently pull each wedge away from the circle a bit to create space between the scones. Brush the tops of the scones with milk and sprinkle with sugar/cinnnamon/nutmeg (stir together first).
- Bake 14 to 18 minutes, until lightly browned.
Notes
- *If you'd like the cranberries more spread out, roughly chop them (but only if they're frozen). Trying to chop fresh cranberries is kind of a messy disaster!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This is the best scone recipe I’ve tried. Perfect texture inside and out
Cut the recipe in half and made 6.
Would love go make this.. But can’t have nuts… i’m sure you can, but if omitting them, will it ruins recipe?
Yes, you can leave them out.
I’m making these beautiful scones for the holidays…great texture and color to these treats…( thanks for the mention, Lori! -xo ). Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
These scones are gorgeous! I love the cranberry and orange flavor – perfect for this time of year!
Love orange and cranberry together! Never gets old. These looks great Lori!
Typically, my scones are spread very far apart, like baking cookies, but I think I want to try it this way next time. It looks so pretty for serving.
I love baking with cranberries and pairing them with orange! These scones look fantastic!
Scones for breakfast on the weekends are the best and fresh cranberries and orange zest make a nice moist and flavorful one. Thanks for the tips on fresh cranberry handling 🙂