These gluten free blueberry scones are tender and flaky inside, with a lightly crisp top. They can easily be made vegan, too.
Biscuits and scones and cookies
As you likely know, I’m from the U.S. and live in New York. To me, biscuits aren’t that distinct from scones. If you’re in England or Australia (as many of you are 👋🏻 friends!), when I say “biscuits” you aren’t entirely sure what I mean. That, or you just think I don’t know what, say, a chocolate chipper really is.
To clarify, to me, biscuits are small round pastries that are leavened with baking powder (Nigella explains it to our UK friends), baking soda (bicarbonate of soda to you, maybe?) or a combination. They’re typically quite flaky and puffy, thanks to the chemical leaveners but also to the chunks of cold fat that expand when they hit the heat of the oven.
Biscuits to you may very well be cookies. I adore cookies and have probably over 100 gluten free cookie recipes here on the blog. But to my ears, biscuits are not cookies.
Scones are very similar to biscuits in the U.S., but they tend to be a bit firmer and aren’t quite as layered and flaky as biscuits. They’re still a pastry, but they’re a bit drier than biscuits.
How to make scones
Now that we know what I even mean when I call a recipe “gluten free blueberry scones,” perhaps you’d like to know how to make them. This being a recipe blog and all.
These scones are easily made in one single mixing bowl. The prep time is just about 10 minutes of active time, with a short spell in the freezer for the dough before it’s sliced.
In a large bowl, you’ll mix the dry ingredients (gluten free flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, plus a small bit of granulated sugar), then add chunks of cold butter (see below for how to make this dairy-free) and flatten them in the dry ingredients. Flattening the butter once it’s in the dry ingredients keeps it from melting too quickly in your hands, or in the oven.
I also like to add lemon zest to the dry ingredients. Lemon flavor goes so beautifully with blueberries and brightens the whole recipe. Next, you’ll toss in the fresh blueberries and stir gently so you don’t break the berries. Medium-sized berries work best, as they hold their shape but don’t overwhelm any individual scone.
Finally, the wet ingredients (milk, lemon juice and honey) are added into a small well you’ll create in the dry ingredients. Be sure to mix gently and don’t handle the dough too much. You want the ingredients to stay cold, so the butter melts suddenly in the oven and not a moment before.
All that’s left to do is shape the dough into a disk, cut it into 6 triangles, brush the tops with milk and cover with a bit more sugar. The milk and sugar topping helps the tops of the scones brown a bit more in the oven without overbaking the rest of the scones.
Ingredients and substitutions
As always, every recipe I create is a formula that works best when made exactly as written—down to the last gram of each ingredient! That’s how you’ll get results that are just like what you see here on the blog.
But I understand that conditions are never perfect and everyone should be able to bake along. Here is all the information I can provide on replacing any of the ingredients you see in the recipe with any others to help fit dietary needs that go beyond just gluten free.
Please keep in mind that, the more substitutions you make, the further away your results may be from mine. Baking is chemistry! Measuring by weight, not volume, using an oven thermometer to ensure your oven is at the right temperature, and taking care to use one of my recommended gluten free flour blends are all great ways to start off on the right foot.
Dairy-free/vegan: I have successfully made these gluten free scones dairy-free (and vegan) by replacing the butter with Miyoko’s brand cultured vegan butter (which my local Trader Joe’s now carries!) and with Melt brand vegan butter. I think it would also work with virgin coconut oil, but the scones won’t puff up quite as much.
For the milk, I used unsweetened coconut milk in the carton. Plain, unsweetened coconut milk in the carton is my favorite nondairy milk for cooking and baking. Its flavor is relatively neutral and it has enough fat to help baked goods brown.
In place of honey (to make the scones vegan), use Lyle’s Golden Syrup or light corn syrup. Either one will work just fine.
Fresh blueberries: Find yourself some really nice frozen blueberries, and you can use them in this recipe in place of fresh. But don’t defrost them!
Whatever precautions you take, the blue color will bleed into the batter. But if you defrost the berries, they’ll get crushed in the batter no matter how careful you are—and they’ll bleed even more.
I think this recipe would also work great using raspberries. If you’d like to make strawberry scones, that really requires a different recipe as strawberries have a ton more moisture. Try my recipe for strawberry shortcake biscuits, and shape them into scones instead of biscuits.
Cornstarch: “Cornstarch” in the U.S. is also known as corn flour, and it’s just a finely milled starch. If you need to make this recipe corn-free, the cornstarch can easily be replaced with arrowroot.
Sugar-free: There is naturally occurring sugar in the berries that can’t be eliminated. But if you’d like to make this recipe free of added sugars, try replacing the honey with your favorite sugar-free liquid sweetener (something that actually has some bulk, unlike liquid Stevia) and the granulated sugar with erythritol.
There really isn’t much sugar in this recipe at all, so replacing it shouldn’t be that difficult. But I haven’t tried making these sugar-free, so you’ll have to experiment!
HELLO! I’m Nicole! I make gluten-free food enjoyable & affordable. If they can make it with gluten, we can make it without. That’s a promise!
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I bought a large container of blueberries for your fruit pizza and decided to try these scones to use some of the extra berries…they were delicious! Thanks for your recipes, you put a lot of time into making sure they are successful for your readers.
Sounds like the perfect summer menu to me, Melissa! Thank you so much for the kind words. That means so much to me.
Hi there. In my former life, I baked a lot so switching to gf is a challenge. This is the first time I made the scones and I thought I would comment because it might help other followers. I substituted dried cherries for the blueberries but I don’t think that is what went wrong. I missed the “15 man in the freezer” part and refrigerated dough instead. By the way, dough was a little wet. I shaved the cold butter and very quickly added the rest of ingredients and handled dough for only the few seconds it took to pat dough into a disk.
Scones were a little spread out at end of baking and 15mn was enough. They tasted more like cake than scones that I used to make with heavy cream. If I switched the milk for heavy cream, would it help?
Most likely, Young, you made the butter too small by grating it. In addition, if you made any substitutions, they will always affect the recipe, as will temperature of ingredients, measuring by volume instead of by weight (volume is extremely unreliable and variable), and finally your flour blend. You do need to use one of my recommended blends (linked to in the flour ingredient), as they are not all created equal.
Could u send me a really really good bread recipe… I struggle finding that right one.
Sincerely
Wendy
I’m afraid that I don’t send recipes, but there are hundreds of free recipes here on the blog. Just take a look around!
I am diabetic and all the flour blends are high in carbs. Any suggestions please..i want to go gluten free but being diabetic type 2 is being a challenge.
I’m afraid not, Stacy. For this recipe, you need a rice-based flour blend. I would take a look at my Paleo recipe category, and also search for “low carb” in the search function (use the quotes).
Do you think yogurt would work in place of the milk?
Hi, Donna, you can’t use yogurt in place of milk, no. You need the liquid.
Nicole, I have not tried baking gluten free this is all new to me. However I have a question and maybe you can answer? Why is all the gluten free baked goods griddy/mealy textured? Do you have a good bread recipe I can try? All this store bought stuff I’ve tried is a huge waist of money…. Thank you, Yvonne🙁
Hi, Yvonne, many gluten free baked goods taste gritty because they aren’t made using a proper, superfine milled rice flour. None of my recipes, when made as written using one of my recommended GF flour blends are gritty at all. You can read my post about rice flour for a full discussion of that ingredient in particular.
These sound delicious! I’d love to try them with chocolate chips and orange zest. Would not using blueberries change the moisture content?
Hi, Ness, good question! Yes, it would. I’d recommend using my gluten free scones mix recipe for that combo.
Are the scones ok to freeze Sheila
They sure are, Sheila. I’d recommend freezing the shaped, raw dough in a single layer on a baking sheet, then transferring it to a freezer safe container. When you’d like a scone, just bake from frozen.
I didn’t see the corn starch substitute. Can you tell me what that would be? Thanks, Sherry
Will frozen blueberries work?
Please see the ingredients and substitutions section, Judy!
Re: cornstarch replacement. Your suggested replacement is missing. I would love to know the answer.
Thank you!
So sorry, Kathy! Somehow that got cut off. It’s there now!