Quick, easy, soft, and buttery scones with a hint of that sourdough bite. These blueberry lemon scones make use of discard from your sourdough starter that is simply irresistible. They will quickly become a favorite in your household.
Ever wonder what to do with that sourdough discard other then pour it down the sink? I was at my wits end with making sourdough discard pancakes and waffles so I wanted to branch out. I saw that there were biscuits made with the starter and since they are so similar I tried my hands at making scones. This what happened because of that.
In this recipe
The best part of this recipe is the sourdough starter. This is due to the acidity of the starter. Many other scone recipes will use buttermilk to achieve the same acidic bite, however with the starter discard you get that familiar sourdough tang. This acidity will be key in also getting the rise from the baking powder.
Keep it cold
It is important to make sure that the dough is cold. The best way to achieve this is to work with it as little as possible. I prefer to use a food processor to cut the butter since it does it in seconds. You can also use frozen butter that way. If that option is not available try and work as quickly as possible to prevent the butter from melting. Also once you have cut the scones, cover them with a towel and put them in the fridge as the oven finishes heating.
Adding the blueberries
Like the butter I prefer to add frozen blueberries. The reason is 2-fold. Firstly, it will help keep the dough cold which is really handy if you aren’t using a food processor. Secondly, it is easier to add them to the dough, shape it, and cut it without bursting the blueberries. They don’t take long to thaw so don’t worry about them increasing baking time by much.
Let them almost touch
In order to keep the scones in their nice triangle form allow them to be set very closely together. This will force them to rise higher. If you prefer a rounder scone then pat the dough disk down more flatly and use a biscuit cutter. You will want to place them similarly to how you would arrange buttermilk biscuits.
Substitute sourdough starter
You can make almost any baked good with sourdough starter. However it is a little tricky. You will need a scale to do this. To substitute sourdough starter for flour and milk/water remove an equivalent amount of flour and water/milk from the recipe and replace with the starter discard. Also never substitute more than half of the weight of flour or milk/water with starter. For example if there are 100 g of flour and 50g of water you will be able to remove 25g of each and replace with 50g of starter. This is assuming your starter is 50% of flour and water by weight.
Looking for other breakfast ideas?
Sourdough Discard Blueberry Lemon Scones
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Bench scraper
- Baking sheet
- Silicone mat/Parchment paper
- Spatula
- Pastry blender
Ingredients
Scone
- 2 cups flour
- ½ cup blueberries fresh or frozen
- ¾ cup sourdough starter discard
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup butter
- ¼ cup milk
- 3 tablespoons lemon zest
- ½ tablespoon baking powder
- 1 egg
- ¼ teaspoons salt
Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1½ tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F, 220°C, or gas mark 7.
- In a large mixing bowl whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and lemon zest. With a pastry blender or your fingers blend in the butter until the the mixture takes on a pebbly consistency. Not all of the bits of butter and flour will be the same size. Add the blueberries.
- Mix the eggs, starter, and milk together until combined.
- Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and with a spatula gently fold and mix the ingredients until all contents stick together. If your dough is a little dry add additional milk 1 tbsp at a time.
- On a lightly floured surface create a mound of dough and shape into a circle about 8 inches in diameter. Using a knife or bench scraper cut the dome into 8 pieces.
- Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat and place in the refrigerator for 30 min.
- Bake for 20-25 min until the tops are a nice golden color. Cool on a cooling rack.
- Mix the lemon juice with the powdered sugar until the icing is smooth. You can add more sugar or juice to achieve the desired consistency. Drizzle over the cooled scones.
Notes
Nutrition
I’m excited to try these out!! Can I prep this the night before? Will it set well overnight?
You can prep them the night before and pop them in the oven the next day.
I know this was an old post, but really enjoyed this recipe! I want to try this scone without any blueberries or other fruits. Do I have to adjust the recipe if I am not going to add any frozen fruits? Thank you so much!
I am glad that you enjoyed the recipe. Yes you will need to make some adjustments however I think if you use my Classic Scones recipe you can use 1/2 cup discard and remove the milk and 1/4 flour if you use a 1:1 ratio for your discard. That scone recipe is my basic recipe that I edit for when I want to add different ingredients for flavors.
Thank you so much, Sean. If you don’t mind, what is the equivalent of 1/2 cup discard and 1/4 flour in metric 😅.
Sorry about that I should have included that in my original reply. You will remove 31 g of flour and that 1/4 cup/62g milk, and add 93 grams of discard. I hope that helps.
Just made these this morning! Super easy and DELICIOUS! Thank you so much for sharing! 🤩
Of course! I am so glad you liked them.
These scones are fabulous. I like to mix the starter egg and milk together and cut the butter into the dry ingredients the night before. Keep them separate in the fridge. Next morning mix, shape and cut very quickly. Refrigerate sheet pan with the scones while the oven preheats. This keeps everything nice and cold and results in a fast morning treat.
So good! Although a pain to clean, the food processor made short work of preparing this. I didn’t even add the drizzle, perfect without, too!
Yea the food processor is a bit of a pain to clean however I love that it cuts the work down by more than half.
I was so excited to make this sourdough discard recipe for blueberry & Lemon icing scones…absolutely delish and the recipe so easy to follow. Turned out beautiful and looking forward to sharing with family and friends! Thank you for the recipe!
I am so glad that you liked it!
Just took them out the oven, can’t wait to try one. Turned out big and beautiful! I won’t be adding the icing since we’re diabetics in my house. I definitely will be added this in my monthly rotation!
Loved how these scones came out and my husband, who dislikes scones because they’re dry, liked them too. They were moist and flavorful. Curious if this same recipe works just as well with cranberry orange. I’ll have to try.
Made these this morning and wow!!!! First time making scones but this was so easy. My dough was wetter than I’m sure it should have been as I had to use lemon juice versus zest. They turned out slightly more moist than a standard scone but fine for me as I’ve always found scones a tad dry for my liking.
Very easy recipe and they taste amazing!
Thank you
Because of the fresh blueberries in the scones they are going to be more moist than other scones and the juice would have also made them even more moist. However I am glad that you liked them!
I am hosting christmas and want to get a head start on my desserts. Can I make these and keep the dough on a cookie sheet for a couple days instead of just 30 mins? That way I can make them the day of and not have to go through the whole process.
Thanks!
Sorry for just seeing this yes you can make the dough ahead of time and freeze it. You will need to let it thaw before baking.
I was skeptical of adding 1T Baking Powder. I felt like it would be too much. I followed the advice of keeping them close on the baking sheet. They poofed up so much that it was one big circle when I took it out of the oven. I had to cut the triangles before letting them cool. I feel a crusty edge on each scone would’ve been nicer. I did add the blueberries last and that was great advice. They stayed nice and plump in the scones. 5 stars because my son just “taste tested” them and said they were really good & that’s really all that matters.
That was a mistake on my part that should have only been 1/2 tablespoon. Thank you for catching that for me. I am sorry that they got so big but I am glad that your son liked them I have updated the recipe to reflect the correct amount.
Wait…the recipe still says 1 tbsp! I just put it all together 😩
The metric recipe
I am rating this even though the unbaked scones are in the fridge for 30 minutes, I used your metric measurements, as did the gal who said hers were runny. I make a LOT of sourdough scones, I jumped right into yours, so happy that I have all the ingredients! When I mixed wet with dry ingredients, seemed exactly like my favorite scones recipe (crystallized ginger and blueberry). I folded the frozen wild blueberries in DIRECTLY from the freezer – all 148 grams of them. Wild blueberries are a tiny bit smaller than normal blueberries but there was a shocking amount of berries…I wish I could post a photo! I know my freezer is the correct temp, but the moisture that came on them while folding made the dough loose and near impossible to work with, VERY hard to get off the floured bench, even with the bench scraper. I will reply to this once they are baked…I’m hoping they are good, even if they look nothing like yours (or any I have ever seen).
I have adjusted the blueberries to use half. Let me know if that still makes the dough too soggy.
These are so yummy! Next time I will add a little more salt and lemon zest, but otherwise perfect!
Big hit! Always looking for great recipes to use with my starter. I was wondering how to store these? Do they need to be kept in thr fridge? Or can they be stored on the counter?
I store them in the refrigerator since they have fresh fruit in them.
Well. I’m not sure where the mishap is. I used the metric on this recipe and the scones were sooooooo wet. I had to add at least another 100g of flour and it was still very wet dough. I make other scones all the time and I wanted to try another recipe especially with lemon and blueberries. I used frozen blueberry’s and frozen butter and I don’t know how all y’all’s dough was but I couldn’t even make it into a scone. I just put them into the oven because I didn’t wanna waste the ingredients. Hopefully they come out okay
Was the sourdough discard is the discard 50/50 flour and water by weight? If the starter is higher in hydration then that could be the reason.
Yes I have a 100 % sourdough starter hydration.
I don’t know why yours came out so runny. I retested to recipe with the metric settings to make sure. As long as your starter is equal portions of flour and water by weight then this recipe should work.
Can’t wait to try this! It sounds amazing. Like someone else said, I personally would wait till the last, after everything else is mixed to add blueberries, and mix by hand to prevent the messy bursting of blueberries. 😊
I’m curious, should the discard/starter be cold or room temp? Mine is refrigerated, but I usually take it out to warm up ahead of time..
Yup always wait until the very end for the blueberries. No one like burst blueberries. I will use cold discard since I want to keep everything as cold as possible when making the scones.
Ok – these are amazing!! So happy with how they turned out. I did a 1/4 cup for sugar and added a bit of maple syrup.
That is an awesome little twist! That sounds delicious.
Sounds like a wonderful recipe.
Can these be baked in a jumbo muffin pan [3.5 x 1.75 inches] ??
Yes I would still cut it in equal parts for but you can place them in a muffin pan, either line them or coat with a nonstick spray.
3/5 only because the lemon zest definitely needs to be doubled. It tasted very close to pizza dough but I think with the extra lemon zest that should fix it.
Thanks for the I added some more to the recipe.
This recipe is a keeper!!! My kids and husband loved them! Perfect blend of lemon, blueberry and dough. This will be one of my discard recipes from now on. I think what I’ll do the next time is wait to put in the blueberries into the dry ingredients until I’m ready to put the wet ingredients to the dry. That way they stay frozen and doesn’t smoosh when I mix them together. YUM!!!! Thanks for the recipe.
Loved the flavor of these scones. I mix the dry ingredients with the butter in a large bowl; then combine the liquid ingredients in another small bowl; and leave both bowls in the fridge overnight. Next morning I add my frozen blueberries to the flour, then stir in the starter/egg mixture. It is super fast to put together and everything stays nice and cold. Thanks for such a flavorful recipe.
This was my first time making scones with sourdough discard and definitely won’t be my last. It made the perfect brunch for my family and went great with strawberry jam!