I love any dessert with citrus, and this Fresh Orange Scone Recipe has the perfect blend of orange and cranberry. The original recipe is from the Magnolia Table Cookbook by Joanna Gaines. Since I can’t have enough cookbooks, I bought it, and after skimming it, I immediately knew that I wanted to bake her scone recipe.
I was super excited to make Joanna’s recipe, but my heart sunk when I saw that it called for sour cream. You see, my husband is deathly allergic to it. Well, I thought sour cream is a lot like Greek yogurt, and I’m delighted the substitution worked!
So, now the whole family can enjoy this fresh orange scone recipe.
Fresh Orange Scone Recipe
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So the other day, my friends and I got to talking and came up with the idea of all of us buying the Magnolia Table cookbook! Then we thought it would be fun to make a recipe from it. And Joanna Gaines has this great quote from the book,
“A huge part of cooking is owning and enjoying the experience. Similar to my design philosophy about making your space uniquely yours, I want you to feel inspired to personalize these recipes and adjust them for your family’s tastes. If you don’t like onions, take them out! If you love mushrooms, add more. Just because the recipe is in the breakfast chapter doesn’t mean you have to serve it for breakfast. In fact, I encourage you to switch it up more often than not.”
Well, I decided to personalize her Orange Scones, and the rest was history. The result is this Fresh Orange Scone Recipe.
Scones are Best Fresh Out of the Oven
If you make these, you’ll find that they are so light and flakey when they come out of the oven, so try and bake them at a time the scones can be served immediately. My husband is always waiting with his plate and a cup of tea when I make scones. He also loves my Starbuck’s Copycat Pumpkin Bread.
A Few Tips About This Fresh Orange Scone Recipe
1. Chill the butter in the freezer
I watch The Great British Baking Show, and when baking scones or pastries, they always try to chill the butter. So I froze a stick and a half of butter (Make sure to measure before freezing it), then I grated it and placed it on a plate lined with some parchment paper and froze it again. Chilling the butter creates the flakey layers in the scones!
2. Grate the frozen butter
It’s easiest to grate the butter after you freeze it.
3. Use a pastry blender
Make sure to use a pastry blender so that your warm hands aren’t handling the butter and melting it. You want things to be cold but mixed, creating a flakey dough.
4. Don’t use a cast iron scone pan
I tried my cast iron scone pan, and the fresh orange scone recipe came out soggy and a bit difficult to take out of the pan. You see, these scones are wonderfully delicate and flakey, and they fall apart relatively quickly.
5. The scone dough spreads
Make them small when shaping your scone dough since they spread while baking. I did make them somewhat large, and after they baked, they came out huge! So be careful with this step.
Fresh Orange Scones
Ingredients
Scones
- 2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for working the dough
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 large egg
- 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 12 tbsp butter chilled and grated
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- 1 tsp almond extract
Orange Glaze
- 3/4 cup cream cheese room temp
- 1/4 cup butter softened
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup orange juice plus 2 tablespoons
- 1 tsp orange zest
- 4 tbsp raw sugar if you opt not to use a glaze then you can top the scones with raw sugar instead
Instructions
Scones directions
- Preheat the oven to 400° F. Next, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
- In a small bowl, lightly whisk the egg. Whisk in Greek yogurt and set aside.
- In another bowl, place the sugar and orange zest together. Using the back side of a spoon combine the sugar and orange zest.
- Stir the sugar mixture in with the flour mixture.
- Add the frozen shredded butter and blend with a pastry blender until mixture is like little pebbles.
- Stir in the egg/yogurt mixture into the dough. Add the cranberries, vanilla extract and mix until it forms a ball.
- Divide dough in half.
- Place one portion on a lightly floured surface and press it into a 6-inch round. It should be about an inch in thickness.
- Cut the round into 4 or 6 wedges and place on parchment lined cookie sheet.
- Repeat this with your other portion of dough.
- Bake for about 13-15 minutes and until golden. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.
- Meanwhile, make the glaze.
Glaze directions
- Blend cream cheese and butter until well blended.
- Add sugar and then vanilla.
- Mix well.
- Next, add the fresh orange juice until the glaze is a tiny bit soft and runny.
- Glaze scones and eat them while they are fresh.
I’ve never met a scone I didn’t like!
I love any scone, and this recipe is one of them.
But, my husband and I find there are so many types of scones.
So here is what I mean when I say there are many types. Have you had scones that are more like a biscuit, crispy on the outside and soft inside? My husband says we have had some that were similar to a cookie. I don’t remember them. I assume that he means the scone was crunchy and hard in texture.
This recipe from Joanna Gaines is more like the top of a muffin and like a sweet muffin/pancake. Unfortunately, the frosting makes it even more confusing for scones.
But ultimately, my family loves them, and that’s what matters most.
I’m so pleased that the freshly grated orange zest is present in every bite. I’m delighted with how the citrus flavor dominates, but you can alter the recipe if you aren’t too fond of it. Also, if you plan to warm these up later in your oven or toaster, you may not want to put the glaze on the top. The glaze doesn’t warm up too well, so instead, top it with raw sugar before baking. I have another scone recipe with raw sugar on the top, inspiring an Epicurious recipe.
Happy Baking!
Cheers,
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Mary
I’m really intrigued by these orange scones and quite frankly I’ve never made or ate one! I would love to make them. Would you please let me know what oven temp I should use to bake them! Thanks Joanna
happyhappynester
Mary,
I totally don’t know what happened, but the scone instructions didn’t show up on the recipe. It is now on the blog post. I’m so so sorry about this inconvenience!
Colleen
Hi! Quick question! Just wanted to confirm whether there should be orange juice in the scone as well as the frosting?
happyhappynester
Hi Colleen,
I’m so sorry that I didn’t publish the complete scone directions. Not sure what happened but the recipe only showed the glaze instructions. Ok, the whole recipe is up, I’m so sorry that you encountered this inconvenience. So, the scone dough only has the orange zest, and the glaze has the orange juice. I hope I’m not too late?! Thanks again for reaching out to me.