Easy Buttermilk Cheese Scones

Buttermilk cheese scones on a wooden bowl with mugs of coffee around it.

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4 from 2 votes

With a savory taste and flakey texture these buttermilk cheese scones are an easy snack to whip up for comfort.

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Total Time40

Course: Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine: English, Irish

Keyword: Breads, Buttermilk Scones, Cheese Scones, Scones

Servings: scones

Calories: 208kcal

Author: Alisa Infanti

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour 10 oz
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
⅓ cup unsalted butter; cold
⅔ cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 ½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese divided

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425° F
In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix well to combine.
Use a cheese grater to shred the cold butter.
Add the shredded butter and 1 cup of shredded cheese to the bowl of flour and mix.
In a small bowl whisk together the buttermilk and egg. Reserve 1 tbsp in a separate small bowl for glazing later.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients being sure to flour is all just moistened so it sticks together. Do not over mix. Press the dough with your hands to form a ball and place the ball of dough on the counter which as been lightly floured. And then flip the dough over so both sides of the dough are lightly floured.
Press the dough down with your hands gently to form a rectangle that is about 1" deep.
Lightly flour a 2.5" round cookie cutter and press the cookie cutter into the dough to cut out each scone. Do not twist the cookie cutter. Simple cut and pull the dough out.
Continue to form the dough and cut our pieces until the majority of the dough has been cut
Place each piece of cut dough on a non-stick cookie sheet or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 20 minutes or until the dough has more than doubled in height and the tops and bottoms of each scone are slightly golden.
Brush the tops of each scone with the remaining egg mixture and top evenly with the remaining shredded cheese.
Remove from the oven and serve warm with butter. Or let them cool and serve with butter, clotted cream and or jam.

Notes

Make sure not to overmix the dough when adding the wet ingredients to the dry. Otherwise, they’ll become chewy and dry.

You need cold butter to make the best buttermilk cheese scones. This is because room-temperature butter will cause it to melt into the dough. But cold butter will melt as it cooks leaving little buttery pockets throughout the scone.

This is also why you grate the butter so that it’s not cubed, and each bite comes out with buttery bliss.

Storage:

Store your scones in an airtight container on the counter. Like this, they will last 2-3 days. Remember, scones taste best when warm so make sure to reheat them before serving.

Note: if you don’t want to grate your butter you can fold the butter into the cheese scones batter by using a pastry cutter. This is a great option for new bakers who are nervous about overmixing the ingredients.

Don’t twist the cookie cutter as you’re portioning them. It can cause the batter to overmix a bit and will result in scones that fall flat.

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