Best Cranberry Orange Scones

These flaky Cranberry Orange Scones are topped with a fresh orange glaze. Made with fresh cranberries, orange juice, orange zest, and sour cream these orange and cranberry scones are bright in flavor and have a moist, flaky texture.

Perfect Cranberry Orange Scones Recipe

I’ve had a thing for scones ever since I was little. Warm and flaky, with a little melted butter on top, cream scones made me feel a little fancy and sophisticated (even if I was eating them out of a plastic container while watching cartoons).

The other perk was no one else in my family put up a fight over the scone situation, as no one really cared for them the way I did. My mom would let me pick them out at the grocery store, and the two in the container were always for me. 

Understandably, my family weren’t really fans of scones, as the store-bought scones we bought were often a little dry and crumbly. That’s true, but little me didn’t mind all that much. 

However, as I got older, I still loved the texture of scones, but I wanted to perfect them to my tastes. My tastes require that homemade scones are flaky and moist, and of course, they must be sweet scones in order to be the perfect breakfast. With that, I’ve taken it as my mission to convert all non-scone people to scone lovers, like me. 

These moist cranberry orange scones are simply perfect, and I’m confident you’re going to love these for the holiday season (plus, it’s such an easy scone recipe). The tart cranberries paired with the sweet orange glaze is simply the perfect combination.

Reasons Why I Love This Recipe For Orange Cranberry Scones:

• Moist: We make these Cranberry Orange Scones with sour cream and heavy cream, which result in incredibly flaky, moist, and tender scones. It adds such a richness to the overall flavor and texture.
• Glaze: The orange glaze is to die for. It’s the same glaze I use for these Orange Cream Scones (one of my most popular recipes!).
• Fresh Ingredients: These are cranberry orange scones with fresh cranberries and fresh orange juice and zest. It makes all the difference!
• Simple: This is such an easy cranberry orange scones recipe. If making scones from scratch intimidates you, try your hand at this recipe. You will be surprised at how quickly everything comes together!

Other Cream Scone Recipes You Might Love:

• Blueberry Cream Cheese Scones: Cream cheese gives these fresh blueberry scones so much flavor and richness.
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones: Pumpkin scones are perfect for this time of year, and these are filled with chocolate chips and plenty of warm spices.
• Orange Scone Recipe: These cream scones are made with fresh oranges and topped with an orange donut glaze!
• Peach Pie Scones: These are made with fresh peaches and topped with my favorite vanilla glaze.
• Blueberry Lemon Scones: Made with fresh blueberries and lemon, these have such a bright flavor and make such a delicious scone recipe.
• Lemon Poppyseed Scones: These fresh lemon scones with poppyseeds are so bright and cheerful!
• Lemon Rosemary Scones: These make the perfect Thanksgiving breakfast (or Christmas brunch), because the fresh lemon and rosemary have such a rich holiday flavor.

What You’ll Need To Make The Best Cranberry Orange Scones:

Cranberry-Orange Scones Ingredients:

• all purpose flour
• granulated sugar
• baking powder
• salt
• heavy cream: this gives the scones a nice rich texture
• sour cream: sour cream scones are always moist and have such great flavor.
• unsalted butter
• egg
• almond extract: Tart cranberries and almonds pair very well together, and the almond extract adds a really nice depth of flavor.
• orange zest + juice: don’t skip the zest! Your scones will not be nearly as flavorful or bright in flavor.
• fresh cranberries: you can substitute frozen cranberries if you can’t find fresh. You can actually put them directly into the scone dough frozen!

Orange Glaze:

• fresh orange juice
• powdered sugar
• vanilla extract
• unsalted butter
• orange zest

How To Make Cranberry Orange Scones:

This recipe for cranberry orange scones is fairly simple, and if you follow the steps, it should be straight forward. This is a basic overview, but the recipe card below has the full details. 

• Preheat: Preheat the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or, you can grease your cookie sheet with baking spray if you would prefer).
• Sugar: Mix sugar and orange zest together. It really helps the fresh orange flavor to be in every single bite.
• Dry Ingredients: Whisk flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt together in a large mixing bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).
• Cold Butter: Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a fork or pastry blender (aka pastry cutter) until the butter forms pea-sized coarse crumbs. If you are using your stand mixer, use the paddle attachment and add the cold butter into the flour mixture a little at a time, mixing on a low speed.
• Wet Ingredients: Pour in egg, heavy cream, sour cream, and orange juice. Mix until the dough has just come together.
• Fresh Fruit: Add in the fresh cranberries and mix until just combined.
• Dough: The dough might be a little crumbly, and that is okay. If the dough is worked too much, the scones will be dry.
• Assembly: Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and pat dough into a circle. (You can use a rolling pin if you would like, but patting the dough into a circle works just fine.) Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into triangles, place on your baking pan, and brush a little heavy cream on top of each scone (makes them extra golden brown). Or, you can cut circles of dough with a circular dough cutter, making round scones.
• Bake: Bake the scones until they have puffed up and the tops are lightly golden brown.
• Glaze: In a separate bowl, whisk, melted butter, orange juice, powdered sugar and vanilla extract together. Add in zest, if desired. Drizzle over the warm scones and allow the glaze to set before serving.

Why Are My Scones Always Dry?

There are a few reasons why scones often come out dry and crumbly:

• Too much flour: Sometimes scones have too much flour to liquid ratio, which makes them very dry and crumbly.
• Not enough butter: If the scone dough doesn’t have enough butter, they won’t be tender or flaky. Butter transforms biscuits, scones, pie dough. Cold butter makes scones very flaky.
• Not enough sour cream or heavy cream: When it comes to scones, using a really thick cream like a sour cream or heavy whipping cream makes scones really moist and flaky.
• No glaze: A glaze is not 100% necessary, but a glaze will lock in moisture (and add extra flavor!)

Why Are My Scones Wet?

Instead of dry scones, sometimes scones come out too wet. This can happen for a few reasons:

• Too much liquid: If there is an excess amount of liquid and an absence of flour, the scones will be too wet. The texture will be somewhere between a muffin and a biscuit, and it’ll be weird.
• Warm butter: If the butter gets too warm, it will make for wet, flat scones. The butter will melt out the sides, instead of creating puffy, flaky layers.
• Dough over mixed: If the dough is over mixed, it’ll get tough and will warm the butter too much, which will make for flat, wet scones.

Best Tips For Making The Best Cranberry Orange Scones Recipe:

• Cut butter into flour:
• Using cold butter, cut the butter into the flour and work it until coarse crumbs form (you want the butter mixture to be the size of peas). The pea-sized butter pieces will help the dough be extra flaky and tender.
• Sour Cream: Sour cream (or greek yogurt) is an integral part of the recipe, because it not only adds flavor and texture, it keeps the dough moist and makes for extra tender orange and cranberry scones.
• Liquid: The heavy cream, egg, and orange juice keeps these very moist.
• Orange Glaze: The glaze not only adds a lot of sweet orange flavor, it helps makes these so moist. A glaze tends to lock in moisture, because it acts like a seal.

Storage Tips:

• Room Temperature: After the cranberry scones have cooled and the glaze has set, you can store these in an airtight container and keep them at room temperature.
• Refrigerator: Or, you can store them in the refrigerator (also in an airtight-container).
• Freezer: If you want to freeze scones, I suggest freezing them unglazed and then adding the glaze after you have thawed them.

Fresh Orange Juice

• You need orange zest for this recipe anyway (do not skip the zest! It makes these  easy Cranberry Orange Scones so bright in flavor) so definitely use fresh squeezed orange juice.

Can I Use Frozen Cranberries?

• Yes, you can use frozen cranberries. If you don’t have fresh cranberries, frozen will work fine. Add them to the dough frozen (don’t let them thaw first—they will be too wet).

Can I Use Dried Cranberries?

• No. This recipe is for fresh Cranberry Scones and dried cranberries will not be the same. Dried cranberries are a little too sweet for this recipe and you really need the tartness of the cranberries (fresh cranberries) to pair with the sweet orange glaze.

Can I Substitute Milk for the Heavy Cream?

• No. You need the thickness and richness of heavy cream to make homemade scones. Milk is too thin and the scone texture will be wrong.

Can I use Greek Yogurt Instead of Sour Cream?

• Yes! Greek yogurt can be substituted. I would still suggest using full fat sour cream if you can, but Greek yogurt can work if necessary.

Quick and Easy Tips For Making Cranberry Orange Scones from Scratch:

• Cold Butter: Keep the butter cold to make a good scone recipe! Cold butter makes very flaky scones. I like to cube the butter and keep it in the fridge until the last minute, because the small bits of butter also create flakiness.
• Sugar: I like to mix the sugar and the zest together first. This makes the sugar extra aromatic, and really incorporates the fresh orange flavor. This extra step transforms these orange cranberry scones from good to phenomenal.
• Golden Top: Use heavy cream to brush the scones before they bake. It makes the tops of the scones nice and golden. If you prefer to use an egg wash, you can use that instead of the heavy cream.
• Raw Sugar: If you’d like, you can sprinkle raw sugar (coarse sugar) on top of the unbaked scones before baking. Or, you can sprinkle the coarse sugar on top of the scones after you have glazed them. It’s optional, but it is what a lot of bakeries do to enhance the appearance of these delicious scones.

5 from 6 votes

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Best Cranberry Orange Scones

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

18 mins

Total Time

38 mins

 

These flaky Cranberry Orange Scones are topped with a fresh orange glaze. Made with fresh cranberries, orange juice, orange zest, and sour cream these orange and cranberry scones are bright in flavor and have a moist, flaky texture.

Servings: 8 scones

Author: Michelle

Ingredients

Scone Dough

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp orange zest
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed and cold
• 1 large egg
• 3 Tbsp sour cream
• 3 Tbsp heavy whipping cream, plus more for brushing
• 2 Tbsp orange juice, freshly squeezed
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup cranberries, fresh

Orange Glaze

• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp orange juice, freshly squeezed
• 1 tsp orange zest (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray with baking spray).
2. In a large bowl, mix granulated sugar and orange zest together.
3. Next, add in flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until combined.

4. Cut in cold butter with a pastry cutter (or using a stand mixer on low speed), until the dough resembles coarse crumbs (and the butter is about the size of peas). Set aside.

5. Whisk egg, sour cream, heavy cream, orange juice, and almond extract together. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.
6. Add in the cranberries, and mix until combined.

7. Turn the scone dough out onto a floured surface, and pat into a 1” thick circle. Cut the dough into 8 triangles with a sharp knife.

8. Place the scones on your baking tray, spacing them evenly apart.
9. Brush the tops of each scone with a little heavy cream, and bake for 16-18 minutes, or until the scones are golden brown on top.
10. While the scones are cooling, whisk together melted butter, vanilla extract, orange juice, and orange zest together. Next, whisk in powdered sugar, beginning with 1 cup. If the glaze seems too thin, add in the remaining 1/2 cup powdered sugar.
11. Pour the glaze over the scones.
12. Enjoy!

Originally posted 2020. Updated 2022.

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