No trip to a fancy bakery needed to enjoy these Lemon Poppy Seed Scones. Simple ingredients, a little love, and you’ll have a batch of these easy freezer friendly scones ready in no time!
Love Starbucks scones? You’ll swoon over these copycat Starbucks Pumpkin Scones and these Orange Scones.
Why this recipe is best
Have you ever made a scone recipe only to have them come out tasting like dense biscuits? The kind you have to slather with tons of butter to make them taste good?
These lemon scones are the complete opposite.
- Full of fresh lemon peel and poppy seeds, these scones have plenty of flavor all on their own.
- Soft crumb texture.
- Sweet lemon glaze.
- No special “scone” baking dish needed, just a flat baking sheet!
If you lemon treats, be sure to whip up a batch of our favorite lemon poppy seed bread!
Ingredient Notes
- Unsalted butter. Make sure your butter is COLD before adding them to the scones. I suggest putting it in the freezer for a few minutes to guarantee maximum coldness. If using salted butter, skip the kosher salt in the ingredients.
- Fresh lemons. You’ll use both the grated peel of the lemon and the freshly squeezed juice in this recipe. Use our guide on how to zest a lemon for best tips and tricks.
- Lemon extract. Use real PURE lemon extract for best results (not imitation flavoring).
- Heavy cream. Be sure to choose heavy whipping cream as you’ll want the high fat content for these scones.
- Poppy seeds. These get mixed into the scone dough before baking. Totally optional!
Easy Instructions
STEP 1. Make the dough
Combine the dry ingredients for the scones in a large mixing bowl. Use a pastry cutter to cut cold butter into the flour mixture.
Stir in the lemon juice, extract and peel, along with heavy cream and an egg.
STEP 2. Knead and shape
Knead the dough on a floured surface until it comes together, about 1 minute. It will be sticky.
Put it down into a disc shape about an inch thick. Cut the dough into 8 triangles (like a pizza).
STEP 3. Bake
Bake scones until the bottoms are lightly browned (about 18 minutes). Let cool for 20 minutes.
STEP 4. Glaze
While the scones are cooling, whisk together the ingredients for the glaze. Drizzle the lemon glaze over the cooled scones.
Tips and Tricks
- How to store. These scones keep well in an airtight container for about 4 days. However, they are also a wonderful pastry to freeze!
- How to freeze scones. To freeze lemon scones, allow them to cool completely before placing them in a freezer safe bag or container to freeze. I recommending putting sheets of parchment or wax paper between the scones to keep them from freezing together.
- Lightly grease your baking sheet. Remember this dough is sticky! You don’t want to have to scrape your delicious homemade lemon scones off the pan with a knife.
- Serve. Add a plate of these scones to your holiday brunch table with our delicious waffle recipe and a pot of coffee with homemade french vanilla coffee creamer.
Recipe FAQs
Cold butter stays between the layers of flour in little pockets instead of getting fully incorporated, creating fluffy layers. Softened butter will blend with the other ingredients in the dough resulting in a denser and less appetizing finished product.
No, you can’t use lemon juice as a substitute for lemon extract. Extract is highly concentrated so it adds a ton of flavor without much liquid. It’s the key to incredible lemon taste in many of my lemon recipes!
Two average sized lemons will give you the right amount of juice and peel to make this recipe.
Buttermilk works beautifully in this recipe as a substitute for the cream.
If your dough ends up too sticky to work with, don’t panic! This is normal. Add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time until it forms a workable (but not completely smooth) dough that doesn’t stick to your fingers in clumps.
More Easy Breakfast Recipes
- Buttermilk Pancakes
- Cinnamon Rolls
- Amish Cinnamon Bread
- Mocha Latte
- Honey Bun Cake
- Cherry Almond Braid
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Easy Lemon Poppy Seed Scones
Ingredients
FOR THE SCONES:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1½ Tablespoons poppy seeds
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter cold
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 teaspoons pure lemon extract
- 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel
- ⅔ cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 large egg
FOR THE GLAZE:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ Tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and poppy seeds in a medium bowl.
- Cut butter into chunks and use a pastry cutter to combine with flour mixture until butter chunks are pea-sized.
- Add heavy whipping cream, egg, lemon juice, lemon extract and lemon peel. Mix until just combined.
- Turn onto a hard, floured surface and knead until dough forms, about 1 minute. Dough will be a little sticky. Form into a ball and pat down into a circle about 1 inch thick.
- Cut circle into eight triangles and place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
- Bake for 18-21 minutes, or until bottoms of scones are lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to cooling rack.
- Let scones cool for 20 minutes. While they are cooling, prepare the glaze. Combine water, lemon juice, and lemon peel in small bowl. Add powdered sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, mix thoroughly before adding more.
- Once cool, spoon glaze onto scones.
Notes
- If the glaze is too runny, slowly add in more powdered sugar until desired consistency. If too thick, add in more water.
- Be sure butter is cold to create fluffy pockets in the scones.
- Fresh lemon juice works best, not the concentrate in bottles.
- Buttermilk can be substituted for heavy cream.
- If dough is too sticky, add one Tablespoon of flour at a time until it’s not as wet. If too dry, add one tablespoon of heavy cream until moistens. Dough should hold together and be moist, but not stick in large clumps to your fingers.
- 2 lemons will get you the amount of fresh lemon peel and juice for today’s recipe.
Nutrition
Once you taste these easy Lemon Poppy Seed Scones you’ll never want to go back to the store bought version!
These scones are so delicious and very yummy! My daughter and hubby loved these for breakfast the other day! So glad I can freeze these and enjoy them later on! I made a whole batch and froze some extras. I can’t wait to make these again!
I made these with blueberries and they were incredible!
I make scones all the time. Had I read comments, I would have divided in half, formed two rounds and cut into 8 triangles. Would have placed on a well floured board. Very wet dough. Ended up in oven as a rectangle which I will cut once baked and cooled.
Have made these several times already as everyone loves them. Thank you for sharing a feast recipe
They are very good!! I just made them this morning.
I love the aroma the lemon 🍋 had in my kitchen., I understand that it’s not going to come out exactly the way it might be described in the recipe ! And that’s ok with me..the taste is what matter and that was nice! Can’t wait to have it with my coffee tomorrow!, ps I also notice other recipes and I felt yours was simplest to follow. Baking is something I been improving on.
Thank you🙂
I made these today. I too wish I had read all of the feedback. The dough was so wet, even after I added an additional half cup flour. I ended up making them drop scones!! They are in the oven now-we will see how they turn out!! I made 8 biscuit size scones from this recipe. I did add blueberries to the lemon recipe. I love lemon and blueberry together! Will update when they are tasted!!
Going to try these they sound delicious and by the way I perfectly understand how you said to cut the dough I don’t understand why others didn’t get it.
I wish I had read all the feedback before I made these. I’m surprised that you would keep the recipe posted unchanged with so much specific feedback. As to the confusing directions, here’s a simple explanation – divide the dough into eight equal pieces, flatten each piece into a rectangle, cut each rectangle from corner to corner to form sixteen triangles. Simple
I just found your sight thru Pinterest and saw these Easy Lemon Scones. I read and reread how to cut them and I even asked mhy husband, and the instructions on cutting are just not clear. I agree with the other person who found the dough so sticky. I don’t understand why the recipe doesn’t just say add an additional half cup of flour. Then I believe the dough would be easier to handle. I also fund the temperature was fairly high, and turned it down to 325. Am sorry I didn’t start at 325. The dough is very good tasting and I used lemons from our tree, so that was great. I think I will attempt to try this again and see if they come out easier, but may look on YouTube for directions for cutting them. Mine were skimpy!! and did get a bit overly browned on the bottom. I will try this again, but I think the recipe should be tweaked. By the way, I’m an experienced baker of cakes and cookies, so this is hardly my first time baking, but it was my first attempt at scones!!!
Made these today they are delicious. The dough was wet but I added more flour and they turned out amazing.
I’ve made scones many many times, you need more flour and the butter needs to be really cold (not softened). I always freeze my dough after handling it and bake from frozen because the cold butter is what gives the beautiful lift to your scones. And when beating the butter into the flour, you don’t want the pieces to get too small or else the scone is crumbly.
So I tried your recipe, but it was extremely sticky, not manageable. It turned out really flat and the bottom looked burnt. I used all your ingredients, used parchment paper and cooked at the temperature and time you advised. The dough was very mushy so much that I couldn’t even make triangles out of them. The dough also didn’t rise. Epic fail. Where do you think I screwed up??
I love scones but could never find a recipe that didn’t call for everything but the kitchen sink and a day and a half to make lol this one looks easy and simple ingredients, but since I don’t have any and it’s not something I will buy I’m going to substitute sour cream for the yogurt since you said it’s main purpose is for the moisture content. Will make these this afternoon will update results later. Happy Baking!😍
Sour cream should work just fine 🙂
What can I use as a substitute for yogurt since I do not have any and don’t want to go out just for that.
You can use sour cream.
Can almond flour or coconut flour substitute regular flour?
Hi! What do I do with the frozen scones? I don’t need to re-bake them, right?
Could you just lemon to orange
Was wondering the same thing but really don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Love those orange scones from Panera!
You sure can. I also have this Orange Scone recipe! https://www.shugarysweets.com/orange-scones/
If I don’t have vanilla yogurt what can I substitute?
Can I use almond milk to make the icing?
Sure can!
I am a seasoned baker and have made many of your recipes with great success but these were a colossal failure. This dough was really wet so clearly something went wrong. I double checked my measurements which were correct so I am hoping you might have some insight for me. It seemed like I could have added another whole cup of flour or more. Help! I would like to try these again.
It is a very sticky dough. So when you pop it onto your work surface, you add just enough flour to make it workable. Having made this numerous times, I’ve added anywhere from 1/4 cup to 3/4 cup depending on humidity in my house! Hope that helps!
Ok, I absolutely HATE Greek yogurt. Is the taste going to strong, and if so, can I sub regular vanilla yogurt?
You don’t taste the yogurt…AT ALL. It’s just there to give the scones the right amount of moisture 🙂
They look great! Can I was regular yogurt?
Yes! 🙂
Yum! You have some great lemon recipes!
I can’t resist a good scone! I would love to have one of these in the morning with my coffee!
You do have some great scone recipes 🙂
Can I make these with blueberries instead of lemon?
Thank you in advance,
Catherine
PS….Love your recipes 💕