Apple Scones

These apple scones are flavored with apple pie spice and dried apples. They are tender, moist, and never cakey! Topped with cinnamon sugar for the perfect autumn scone!

These apple scones deliver everything a good scone should: a crisp exterior, a tender crumb, and enough warm spice to make them worth baking. The dried apple keeps the texture clean while adding concentrated flavor that fresh fruit simply cannot.

I like to mix up my breakfast pastry recipes in the Fall and serve an assortment, because there are so many great options. Try a little basket of pumpkin cream cheese muffins, pumpkin coffee cake, and gluten free pumpkin bars!

Ingredients & Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour: Provides the structure for the scone. Spoon and level it rather than scooping directly from the bag, which packs the flour and throws off the ratio.
• Sugar
• Salt
• Apple Pie Spice: This is the flavor backbone of the scone. I use my own apple pie spice because the layered warmth it brings is something a single spice cannot replicate, though 2 teaspoons of cinnamon will work in a pinch.
• Baking Powder: Provides lift and an open crumb. Make sure yours is fresh; old baking powder is the most common reason scones come out flat and dense.
• Butter
• Vanilla Extract
• Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness.
• Heavy Cream: Adds fat and moisture to the dough and is brushed on top just before baking for a crisp, caramelized finish. Do not substitute with milk or half-and-half; the fat content matters for both texture and crust.
• Dried Apples: Choose dried apples that look plump rather than shriveled and papery.
• Cinnamon and Granulated Sugar (topping): Maybe you have some leftover for the best snickerdoodle recipe! Sprinkling over the cream-brushed scones gives the exterior that crackly, spiced crust that makes them worth eating warm from the oven.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations on This Spiced Apple Scones

• Fresh apples. You could use diced fresh apples, but the moisture will make little gummy pockets in your scones. You could also fold in cinnamon apple compote for extra flavor. For other fresh fruit scones, try blueberry scones or these strawberry scones.
• Spice Swap. Use 2 teaspoons of straight cinnamon, or try this pumpkin spice recipe or my speculoos spice mix. Mix the spice mix with sugar and use it on top of the scones too!
• Top with a glaze. Like these cinnamon scones, a cream cheese glaze would be just divine! Even a simple vanilla glaze would complement them nicely.
• Additional mix-ins. Mix in white, milk, or dark chocolate chips with the dried apples! Mix in some toffee pieces or walnuts, like in these carrot cake scones, for a delicious added crunch.

Professional Tips

• Keep everything cold. If the dough warms up at any point during shaping or cutting, slide it back into the refrigerator for 30 minutes before baking. Warm butter melts into the dough before the oven sets the structure, and you lose the flaky, layered texture entirely.
• Blend the wet ingredients thoroughly. An immersion blender takes about 10 seconds and guarantees a fully homogenous liquid that incorporates fast, which means less mixing time and a more tender scone. A whisk works too, but you have to be thorough.
• Choose your dried apples carefully. Plump, pliable dried apple gives you clean pockets of fruit. Papery, over-dried apples pull moisture unevenly from the surrounding dough and create gummy spots, which I tested my way through more times than I would like to admit before landing on this as a hard rule.
• Bake at the right temperature and watch the color. These scones bake at 325°F convection or 350°F conventional for 18 to 22 minutes, just like my lemon scones. Pull them when they are golden brown and puffed, not just set: pale scones are usually underbaked at the center even when the exterior looks done.

How to Make Spiced Apple Scones

Start with the dough: it needs at least two hours to chill before you cut and bake, so plan accordingly.

Make the dough:

Step 1: Prep your dry ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the flour, sugar, salt, apple pie spice, and baking powder. Mix on low to distribute everything evenly.

Step 2: Cut in the butter. Add the cold, cubed butter and mix on low until no visible chunks remain and the mixture looks like wet sand.

Cutting the butter fully into the flour coats the gluten strands and limits their ability to form a strong, tough network. Do not rush this, but do not over-mix either. Once it looks like damp, clumping sand, stop.

Step 3: Blend the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the vanilla, eggs, and heavy cream. Use an immersion blender or a whisk and mix until completely smooth and uniform.

Step 4: Bring the dough together. With the mixer running on low, slowly pour the cream mixture into the flour-butter mixture and mix until almost incorporated. The dough will look shaggy and uneven at this point, which is exactly what you want to see. Stop the mixer before it fully comes together.

Step 5: Finish by hand and fold in the dried apples. Turn the dough out onto a dry surface and knead it gently until no dry pockets of flour remain. Once the dough is cohesive, scatter the chopped dried apples over the surface and fold them in with a light hand until evenly distributed.

Chill and Cut the Dough:

Step 6: Press and chill the dough. Transfer the dough to a sheet of plastic wrap and press it out to about half an inch thick. Wrap it tightly and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. Chilling firms the butter back up, which is what creates those distinct flaky layers once the scones hit the heat.

Step 7: Cut the scones and preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 325°F convection or 350°F conventional. Cut rounds using a ring or biscuit cutter, pressing straight down without twisting, or slice the dough into triangles with a bench scraper or sharp knife. You can freeze the cut scones at this point for a month.

Work quickly: the dough should feel cold and firm when you cut it. If it has warmed and softened noticeably, slide it onto a sheet pan and refrigerate it for 30 minutes before continuing. Cold dough going into a hot oven is what drives the lift.

Top and Bake the Scones:

Step 8: Arrange on the baking sheet. Place the cut scones on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving a little space between each one.

Step 9: Top with cream and cinnamon sugar. Brush each scone with a thin, even coat of heavy cream, then mix the cinnamon and granulated sugar together and sprinkle generously over the tops.

Step 10: Bake until golden and puffed. Bake in the preheated oven for 18 to 22 minutes. Start checking at 18: the scones should be visibly puffed and golden brown on top, with the edges just set.

Step 11: Cool on the baking sheet. Let the scones cool completely on the pan before serving. The interior finishes setting as they cool, and cutting into them too soon will leave the crumb slightly underdone, even if the outside looks done in the oven. Scones are best the day they are baked.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

These spiced apple scones, with their tender crumb and warm spice, are the kind of thing I want on the counter every fall morning. Browse more ideas in Breakfast Recipes or Dessert Recipes.