The Best Blueberry Scones

To be honest, when I picked out this recipe I didn't expect to find the best of anything! It was a late night after a long day at work, but I wanted to bring a treat to work the next morning as a thank you to my fantastic mentors/coworkers for this past month at my clinical internship. There are fresh blueberries galore in the house, and they clearly had to make a cameo in whatever I put together.

Scones are one of the most delicious additions to breakfast or afternoon coffee, and I've played around with a lot of different recipes and techniques with varied success. But of any of those, this recipe is by far the easiest and most delicious! Light and buttery crumb with a golden edge, balanced with sweet bursts of berries, you won't be able to stop at one. Lucky for you, they're easy enough to whip up any night of the week!


Note: I decided to make these as "drop scones," meaning you don't have to roll them out and cut them - just drop the dough onto the baking sheet! It's a bit of extra work and a lot more flour all over the kitchen to follow the original recipe, but if you're not one for shortcuts I'm sure it would be just as delicious.


Blueberry Scones

Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking

Makes about 9 scones

2 C all-purpose flour

1/3 C granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

6 Tbsp chilled butter, cut into pieces

1 C fresh or frozen blueberries

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 C buttermilk (homemade: 1/2 C milk with 1/2 Tbsp white vinegar)

Raw turbinado sugar (for topping)

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Blend butter into flour mixture using pastry cutter or forks, until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Gently fold in blueberries. Add beaten egg, vanilla and milk and gently mix until just blended. 

Drop about 1/3 C of dough for each scone spaced evenly on the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle turbinado sugar on top of each scone if desired. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until scones are just golden. Let cool before enjoying.

Summer Strawberry Cupcakes

There's no better way to celebrate the return of summer than with a Memorial Day BBQ. After debating what to contribute to the feast, I realized there was only one solution - strawberry cupcakes! Most of the cupcake recipes out there are kind of lame, only adding chunks of strawberries to vanilla cake batter. I knew that nothing short of beautiful, uniformly pink cakes would make the cut, so I was overjoyed when I stumbled across this recipe for Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes.

They're a gorgeous light pink color, wonderfully tender and offer the perfect amount of sweetness and strawberry flavor. Topped with a slice of fresh strawberry, they're beautiful little additions to a dessert table. Don't miss your chance to put that fresh farmers market fruit to good use this June!

I experimented with a vanilla mascarpone frosting, but didn't love the result, so I won't post the recipe here. But in the future, I would top these with whipped cream or even a light vanilla cream cheese frosting. The sky's the limit! But don't overwhelm the strawberry flavor with a topping that's more intense than vanilla.

Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcakes
Recipe from Oprah.com
Makes 12 cupcakes


2/3 C fresh strawberries (you can use frozen in a pinch)
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 C sugar
1 egg
2 egg whites

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare cupcake tin with liners. Puree strawberries in a food processor, and set aside 1/3 C to use in the recipe.

In one bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. In another, whisk together milk, vanilla and strawberry puree. Cream butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then add sugar and beat until well-combined. Slowly add egg and egg whites and mix until blended.

At low speed, slowly mix in half of the flour mixture. Add milk mixture. Slowly add the last half of the flour and beat until just blended, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed. Divide batter among cupcake liners and bake until the tops of the cakes spring back to light touch, about 20-25 minutes. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.