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Chocolate Chip Scones
Sweet, tender, and buttery with morsels of melted chocolate within – children (and grown-ups!) absolutely love these chocolate chip scones.
Sweet, tender, and buttery with morsels of melted chocolate within – children (and let’s not forget husbands) absolutely love these chocolate chip scones. They’re wonderful served warm out of the oven, especially on a lazy weekend morning when you feel like spoiling everyone.
This recipe is a variation on my traditional cream scones. The difference is that these are a bit sweeter, dotted with chocolate chips, and flavored with vanilla. They also disappear faster, at least at my house.
What You’ll need To Make Chocolate Chip Scones
As you can see, I use cake flour to make these scones. Cake flour is a finely milled, delicate flour with a low protein content that makes ultra-tender scones. It is sold right near the all-purpose flour in most supermarkets and is worth adding to your pantry for sure.
How to make Chocolate Chip Scones
Begin by combining the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then whisk to blend.
Add the pieces of cold butter.
Use your fingertips to rub it into the flour until the mixture resembles very coarse crumbs. Don’t worry about getting a uniform consistency. All those little pea-size clumps of butter create structure in the scones and make them tender and fluffy when baked.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Combine the cream, egg, and vanilla in a small bowl.
Whisk to blend.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the cream mixture.
Stir with a rubber spatula until blended.
When the dough comes together, dump it onto a work surface dusted with flour. It should be sticky.
Gently knead the dough into a ball.
And then press it into a flat circle about 3/4-inch high.
Cut the circle into 8 wedges.
Transfer the wedges to prepared baking sheet, then sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until lightly golden and firm to the touch.
Serve scones warm out of the oven.
You may also like
- Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Pumpkin Glaze
- Light and Tender Cream Scones
- Butterscotch Pecan Scones
- Glazed Oatmeal-Maple Scones with Pecans & Currants
Chocolate Chip Scones
Sweet, tender, and buttery with morsels of melted chocolate within – children (and grown-ups!) absolutely love these chocolate chip scones.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cake flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled with knife (see note on substitution)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, best quality such as Guittard or Ghirardelli
- 1 large egg
- 2/3 - 3/4 cup heavy cream (do not substitute milk or light cream)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon demerara sugar (also called raw sugar or turbinado)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and set an oven rack in the middle position. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together cake flour, salt, baking powder and granulated sugar. Add the pieces of cold butter. Use your fingertips to rub butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with pea-size clumps of butter within. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- In a small bowl, whisk together 2/3 cup heavy cream, the egg and the vanilla. Make a well in center of dry ingredients, then add the cream mixture. Use a rubber spatula to mix until the dough comes together. It should be a bit sticky. If it seems dry, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of cream.
- Dust a work surface lightly with flour, then dump the sticky dough on top. Knead very gently a few times until the dough comes together into a ball, sprinkling more flour as needed if the dough is too sticky to work with. Press the dough into a circle about 3/4-inch high, then cut into 8 wedges. Transfer the wedges to the prepared baking sheet, and then sprinkle evenly with the demerara sugar. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the scones are lightly golden and firm to the touch. Serve warm.
- Note: If you don't have cake flour, you can make your own: simply whisk together 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup cornstarch.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The dough can be frozen for up to 3 months: Place the dough wedges on a baking sheet, let set in the freezer, then place in a sealable bag and press out as much air as possible. Bake as needed directly from the freezer. (Allow 1 to 2 minutes longer in the oven.) To Freeze After Baking: Let the scones cool completely and store in an airtight container separating layers with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Before serving, remove the scones from the container and let them come to room temperature. **If you have the option to freeze the scones before or after baking them, you will get the best results if you freeze them before baking.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (8 servings)
- Serving size: 1 scone
- Calories: 364
- Fat: 20 g
- Saturated fat: 12 g
- Carbohydrates: 44 g
- Sugar: 16 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 5 g
- Sodium: 217 mg
- Cholesterol: 70 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Reviews & Comments
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These scones are incredible! I have been making them for quite some time and have been meaning to send a review. My 10 year old son begs for them on a regular basis. I bake them and then freeze them in individual little zip lock bags. He gets up, pops one in the microwave for 30 seconds before school and it is perfectly moist and tender. His class recently had a party and he asked to bring a large batch to school. The teacher made sure to heat them up a bit in the cafeteria and they were a huge hit!
Just made the scones for the first time and they were exactly how I like my scones – tender and buttery! Jenn, you are the best! Your site is now my go-to source for recipes – every recipe I have tried has been delicious and exactly what I was looking for in a particular dish/dessert! Your recipes are fantastic and your instructions and photos are so easy to follow. Your’s and Ina Garten’s recipes are the only ones I will try now – because they never disappoint! Thank you!!
I made these scones snd they are amazing! Thank you for the recipe!!!
I’ve made this delicious recipe several times before, each time when we were having company for brunch. This morning I made it for no reason at all, other than it would make a lovely treat for my husband and myself as we watched Meet the Press. This shows you how easy these scones are to make, and how much I value our Sunday mornings. As always, Jenn, many thanks!
I make these frequently – simple and delicious. I use a mixer and it is fast. For fun I tried making it as a ‘scone cake’ for a birthday – instead of cutting it, I just baked it whole in the last step (kept it in the oven closer to 17 minutes). It worked quite well and kept it moist. Also we could cut it to custom sized pieces. Kept well into the next day. Thank you as always for your great recipes!
I made these this morning and they came out amazing! It was such an easy recipe to follow!
When you freeze before baking are you freezing with the coarse sugar on top or will you add the sugar before you are ready to bake?
You can go either way, but because you cake bake them straight from the freezer, I’d add the sugar before freezing. Hope you enjoy!
Can I make the scones and wait to bake them until the next morning? Or do they need to be baked or frozen right away?
Yes, you can refrigerate them overnight before baking. Hope you enjoy!
I am amazed that I can bake a scone better than my favorite bakery! Thanks so much for the recipe and your website. I am enjoying it and so are the people that get to share what I bake!
Oh my, these scones are so fantastic and easy to make as well. Don’t know why, but these types of recipes are intimidating to me and I love to bake. Not this recipe! Only change I made was I used mini chips instead of regular chips. This recipe is perfect!
Delicious and easy! I followed the recipe as written (with the flour/cornstarch sub) and the scones were so light and tender. I did have to bake them about 4 minutes longer but I think that may have to do with my oven temp not being accurate. I will definitely make these again!
These are delicious! I like that they bake up with a tender crust on the bottom/edges/corners but remain tender inside. The recipe is easy to follow and overall simple to execute. I also like that are lightly sweet and not all dense. I shaped mine into a square and cut into 12 triangles. Home run recipe!! Thanks Jenn.
I’ve made this recipe multiple times and never had it NOT turn out. Both my kids love these and so do the adults! I have made with both mini chocolate chips and regular. The bigger chips are better. I have sprinkled with both turbinado sugar and regular sugar. The regular is preferred because it’s not as big of crystals. I have also forgotten the sugar topping, which definitely adds some necessary sweetness so don’t try that! I have also made these for guests, with many requests for the recipe. I used to think scones were difficult to make; however, I’d now suggest trying these to anyone.
These are YUMMY! Soft and tender, wonderful with a cup of tea. I used a 3.5 ounce bar of Cadbury chocolate (chopped into small pieces) instead of chocolate chips.
I will never buy another scone again! These are easy to pull together quickly enough in the morning to satisfy the demands of a 3 year old. They are crumbly, tender and delicious! I used mini chips as another person recommended, but large ones would also have been fine.
I made this twice back to back and both times the dough was soooo sticky I wound adding upwards of 1/2 cup to 1 cup of flour to make it workable. I’ve had success with all of your recipes, not sure what I did wrong here. Your blog shows a photo of “heavy whipping cream” and I used “heavy cream.” Could this be the issue?
Sorry to hear you had a problem with these! Heavy cream and heavy whipping cream are really interchangeable, so that shouldn’t cause a problem. Did you make any other adjustments to the recipe?
Absolutely delicious..froze them a week ahead as instructed and baked an additional minute or two. I think the cake flour makes them so tender. Jenn, this is the only scone recipe I will make from now on.
This is the recipe that got me hooked on #onceuponachef
My co-workers and I are all hooked and the recipe book is in the mail for Christmas for everyone!
Great recipe. I was intimidated since I never made scones before but thanks to your pictures, showing each step, I gave it a try and the results were delicious scones that I would be happy to share with special guests.
I have tried several chocolate chip scone recipes with little success. This recipe was a completely different story. Perfection! Thank you for sharing this fool-proof, delicious recipe! These scones were absolutely amazing! Mine were done to perfection in 12 minutes! Instead of the coarse sugar topping, I let them cool then drizzled on a glaze made of powdered sugar and milk. My search is over. Will make these again and again. 🙂
I think it would have been better just spooning the moist dough onto the parchment paper and baking the way you do Sticky Fingers scones. The flavor was good, but I had to add so much flour to be able to roll out and cut into wedges that it made them very dry. I will try again making them as drop scones or less cream.
These were delicious! Is it better to freeze the scones before baking or after baking?
Hi Josephine, I’d freeze them before if possible. 🙂
I have made these scones for my son-in-law several times. I always give them as a parting gift after a family visit. Come to find out, since they live about 3 hours away – apparently the children and my daughter dive into the package
en route home! I don’t think he ends up with many for himself as everyone loves them! I follow the recipe exactly, and they are a big hit!
Can i use blueberries instead of chocolate chips?
Hi Fanny, Do you have my cookbook? I have a wonderful blueberry scone recipe in there. If you don’t have the book, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I’ll send it to you.
Yes I have the book.i didn’t see that.i see ot now.
Can i use cake flour instead of all purpose flour to the BLUEBERRY scone the one is the book.
Hi Fanny, I actually don’t recommend cake flour for the blueberry scones. The blueberries release so much juice, you really need the all-purpose flour to lend structure; otherwise they fall apart (I’ve tried it!).
I love your recipes! The presentation and pictures make them even more appetizing.
For this scone recipe, I made it, I liked it, but I still feel that it’s missing something. It is flaky and tender, and maybe too tender, for scones. I think I like scone a bit more “dense” to hold the buttery signature taste of scone. These scones are light and airy, and while that is much better than dry and dense, it’s still missing something. Maybe next time I’ll try using half all purpose and half cake flour. Thanks!
Hi Amy, For a denser scone, use all-purpose flour. 🙂
These scones are perfect. Just the right texture and delicious. I use chocolate chunks. I wrap each one individually and freeze them. They are great with coffee in the morning.
These are my go-to recipe if I’m having people over for coffee. The scones are easy to make and they freeze perfectly so can be made ahead of time and defrosted when needed. I have even used cookie cutters to customize the shapes from triangles into hearts or scallop-edged circles.
As an avid follower, I just wanted to thank you for your recipes and blog. I actually feel like I am becoming a decent cook/baker because I finally have the confidence to try new things due to your very specific instruction and recipe details. I just made these scones the other day(and I would never have attempted anything like this a couple years ago), and they were delightful! My friends wanted the recipe so I shared your blog with them. Thanks so much for your willingness to share!
Oh, and since I can now make a scone, 🙂
is this recipe pretty much interchangeable with other flavors? For example, insert blueberries instead of chocolate chips? TIA!
So glad you enjoyed them, Amy! And thank you for the kind words about the recipes – that makes me happy 😊. I would say you could use this scone recipe for some scone flavors but not all. For example, it would work with dried fruits like currants, raisins, or dried blueberries. Fresh blueberries are quite tart and release a lot of juice, so the recipe would need to be adjusted. I actually have a wonderful recipe for blueberry scones with lemon glaze in my upcoming cookbook. I’m happy to email it to you, if you’d like. Lmk. 🙂
These came out delicious. First time I have ever baked with cake flour and I was happy I did. Quick question, we had some left over and they were clearly not as good as when I first made them. An suggestions on the best way of serving/using leftovers? I had put them in a plastic sealed container. Thanks for another great recipe
I made these scones tonight and was very pleased by the outcome. They were not too dry and very tasty. I will definitely make these again.
Another great recipe from this site. I’ve been making scones and muffins for years, and the recipes here are the best, ever. I usually follow the recipes exactly unless I need to substitute for an ingredient I don’t have on hand. I’ve made these scones using half-and-half in place of the cream, and I thought they were perfect. To make clean up easier, I turn the dough onto a pan-size piece of parchment, knead it, cut it, separate and space the scones, then transfer the whole thing to the baking pan.
These are my kids’ all-time favorite breakfast food ever. I’ve made them so often, I could probably do it in my sleep. I leave off the sprinkling of sugar on top (it’s sweet enough without it) and sometimes split the dough into two rounds and cut each round into six triangles.
Can I make these with Gluten-Free Flour?
That should work, Ana. Please lmk how they turn out!
These scones are fantastic! I’ve made them for friends, family and bake sales. Everyone always raves about them. I use a food processor to pulse the butter into the flour mixture. I look forward to trying other recipes on this site. Thanks to Jenn for sharing.
Best scone recipe ever! And super simple to make. I’ve made it several times and it has come out perfectly every time.
Hi! I don’t have raw sugar. Can I substitute with granulated sugar ? If so , what amount is needed. Thank you!
Sure, Molly – I’d use about 2/3 as much.
So glad I found this site and totally agree with the majority of reviewers: recipes are excellent, preparation steps are well laid out and easy to follow and best of all everything that I have made so far tastes fantastic! Thanks Jenn!!
Hi Jen, I have a question about cake flour. I read online that as a substitute for every cup of regular flour remove one Tbls. and add one Tbls. of cornstarch in its place. Would that be something you’d suggest? Otherwise, I’ll wait until I buy some cake flour. The scones sound and look delicious!
Hi Sandy, I replace 2 tablespoons of flour with cornstarch – works great!
Thanks, Jen, for getting back so quickly! Made them right away – why is every recipe I try of yours an absolute favorite!?!?! My husband ate two right away! We have some guys over doing some painting, and I gave each of them a scone – they were wowed! That means only three left, since of course I had one! Next time I’m thinking of cutting each triangle into three before baking – ? Thanks for another 5 star recipe!
Yay! ?
I’m making your chocolate chip and flaky scone recipes today for Mothers Day but I just noticed that while they are very very similar they bake at different temperatures. Any chance they can both be baked at same temperature? Hope you have a wonderful Mothers Day. I’m a huge fan of your recipes and site.
Sorry I’m probably too late to reply, Annie – but yes you can cook them at the same temp.
Hello,
I do not eat chocolate (I don’t like it very much), can I substitute nuts, cranberries, or dried coconut (or something else along those lines)?
Thank you,
Marilyne
Definitely– hope you enjoy!
First of all these scones were nearly perfect. My review is to share something I found out about baking. Regarding Baking Powder – make sure you buy Aluminum free BP! I made the mistake of buying a store brand and couldn’t understand why many of my baked goods had an underlying bitterness. As this recipe had a fair amount of baking powder, I did a little Google research and found out that aluminum in BP will cause bitterness! I can’t wait to make this recipe with my new aluminum free bp! I will go back into my review and update after making these again!
good old Rumford baking powder…what would we do without it
I already prepared the dry ingredients and then realized we didn’t have any eggs. Should I keep dry ingredients on standby until I get eggs later? Or should I bake without the egg?
Hi Carrie, I’d keep the dry ingredients on standby– you’ll be happy you waited!
OMG They didn’t last an hour after I said they were done! Generally I prefer Nuts and Berries but I used them up making your Cranberry Quick Bread earlier today (Which is also gone!) My hubby loves Bread of any kind but put Chocolate in it and he goes nuts but generally I get a piece or two, not this time. I did add a few cinnamon chips as well as the chocolate it was Fabulous!!
I forgot to add a rating!
I just made these for breakfast, half asleep and clumsy. I was sure I would butcher this recipe. However, they were AMAZING! Each bite was like heaven. I can’t wait to make it again!
Hi Jen,
I have two question:
1. Why can scone be made ahead the night before and still rise in the oven the next day but your quick cinnamon roll will not.
2. Can I use buttermilk instead of cream in your recipe? What does buttermilk do in such pastry?
Thank you!
Hi Lu, The scones are leavened with baking powder, while the cinnamon rolls are leavened with a combination of baking powder and baking soda. The buttermilk in the cinnamon roll dough reacts immediately with the baking soda, so they should be baked right away to get the maximum rise. Unfortunately, buttermilk won’t work in the scones — buttermilk is acidic and would require the addition of baking soda for the scones to rise. You’ll notice baking soda in any baked good that calls for acidic ingredients, such as citrus, buttermilk, etc. Hope that explains it 🙂
Thank you, Jen! I made your scone this weekend and followed this recipe! They were AMAZING! My picky three-year-old even asked for seconds.
These look amazing as do the pumpkin scones. My question is actually for both recipes. Can the batter be frozen, thawed and baked at a later date and if not, can the scones after cooking them be frozen? Thanks!
Hi Abbie, Yes, that should work just fine. Hope you enjoy 🙂
Perfect and easy! It would be fun to try different add-ins.
Why can’t milk or milk/butter combo substitute for heavy whipping cream? I’d really love to make these with my son but don’t have any in the house and hate to go to the store just for it. Thanks!
Hi Ursula, Milk will work but the scones won’t be as rich and tender.
Thank you, again, for this scone recipe. I baked it with my kids again this morning and we absolutely love it! It turns out perfect every time, even with an inexperienced baker like me.