Make tender, flaky sourdough discard berry scones with this recipe!
Not only is the texture delicious, I have a technique for making these berry scones look beautiful rather than having the bits of fruit falling to the bottom.
Learn how to make them, 5 tips for success with every bake, fruit addition ideas and find many other sourdough scone recipes to try.
First, I’ll review sourdough discard, but feel free to skip to the following sections to begin making these!
What is Sourdough Starter Discard?
Sourdough starter discard is the stage of sourdough starter after the starter has been refreshed (process of discarding and feeding) and was an active starter for several hours. Once the wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria have digested all the “food” in the starter: the simple carbohydrates from the flour, the gluten connections that hold in those lovely bubbles of carbon dioxide grow weak so the starter collapses lower and lower with every hour. And some microorganisms grow weaker and some die in this process as the food runs out.
This leaves a flat sourdough starter with little to no bubbles, a stronger sour smell, and microorganisms in desperate need of care.
At this stage, the yeast is not in a stage where it can do a good job rising bread unless a specialized bread recipe is used like my No Knead Sourdough recipe. So a small portion, about a tablespoon, is put into a fresh jar and fed to revitalize the starter to make it become active again. The rest of the sourdough starter is known as discard because it’s what can be tossed or set aside since the small portion we carried over will continue the life of our sourdough starter.
Note: Another way to get rid of the bulk of sourdough discard is to pour out about 90% of the old sourdough into a collection jar (I usually have one or two in my fridge) then feed the small portion left in the jar. There’s room in sourdough baking for a wide variety of methods as long as you have down the basic principles of refreshing your sourdough starter: discarding and feeding. To learn more about this, check out my post What is a Sourdough Starter?
Check out this other post and video on What is sourdough discard?
Why use Sourdough Starter Discard?
You can absolutely just discard the old sourdough starter, but you can also use it in a variety of sourdough recipes to create more flavor and texture. Another benefit of using sourdough starter discard in sourdough recipes is that when used properly, it can make the recipe more digestible.
Since sourdough starter discard doesn’t have the rising power of active sourdough starter, it is commonly used in crackers, cookies, scones, pancakes, and other versions of quick breads when other leavening agents like baking soda, baking powder, eggs, or a combination are used.
Check out these other posts with videos:
- Why use Sourdough Discard?
- How to Store Sourdough Discard for Starter Discard Recipes
- How to use Sourdough Discard
What are scones?
Scones are a pastry made with cold butter that is cut in to form a tender, flaky texture.
They are mixed just until ingredients are combined. Kneading scone dough will result in too much gluten development which makes scones chewy instead of soft and flaky.
American style biscuits are basically a plain savory scone.
Scones can be adapted with different ingredients to become savory or sweet. See my sourdough discard recipes for several sourdough scone recipes!
Fresh-milled Whole Wheat
This recipe is great for experimenting with adding fresh-milled whole wheat.
If you are new to fresh-milled whole wheat or you haven’t heard about it before, check out this page.
I’ve made this with a portion of triticale whole wheat flour from Moon Family Farm as well as with sonora whole wheat flour from Hayden Flour Mills and it made the flavor incredible!
Aside from flavor, two things whole wheat flour will affect are gluten development and texture.
Adding whole-wheat flour reduces the gluten formation we are trying to avoid in scone making, which is good. The bran in the whole wheat flour will hold onto more of the moisture added to make the scones so they will have added softness and stay soft longer.
How to make Sourdough Discard Berry Scones with Lemon Glaze
Here are the basic ingredients to make 6 large sourdough discard berry scones:
- Scone dough
- 210g (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour Or 200g (about 1 cup 2 T.) Sonora or soft whole wheat flour (whole wheat adds more flavor and texture)
- 100 grams (1/2 cup) sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- zest of one lemon
- 113 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cold
- 200 grams (about 1 1/2 cups) sourdough discard, chilled
- 25-30g (1 2/3 T. to 2 T.) whole milk, chilled**
- 70-90 grams berries* (about 3/4 cup)
- Lemon glaze (optional)
- 65 grams (about ½ cup) powdered sugar
- 1 to 3 teaspoons lemon juice
*Blueberries, blackberries, ollalaberries, and boysenberries work especially well. Strawberries can work, but some varieties have more moisture so the scones may spread more. Frozen berries work very well in this recipe
**Add the milk slowly. Don’t over-add. See mixing notes. Substituting water is okay. If using whole wheat flour, only add 10g at a time to check dough consistency.
Berry Preparation for Sourdough Discard Berry Scones
Fresh berries or frozen berries work well in this scone recipe.
The darker, less watery berry varieties (e.g., blueberry, blackberry, ollalaberry, boysenberry) are preferred.
Strawberries are delicious, but due to the higher moisture content, they can cause the scones to spread more during baking. To help reduce moisture problems, dice the strawberries into small pieces (smaller than a grape) and freeze before you begin making your dough.
A technique I use to make sure that I bake delicious scones, but beautiful scones, is to prepare the berries.
- Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of a pie plate.
- Take a portion of the berries, about 1/8 to 1/4 cup, depending on the size of berries. (smaller berries can be spread out more easily so you don’t have to use as many)
- Spread out the berries evenly on the parchment paper.
- Carefully transfer the pie plate with your placed berries into the freezer for at least 20 to 30 minutes. This stays in the freezer until the dough is made.
Making the dough for Sourdough Discard Berry Scones
First, combine your dry ingredients, sugar, and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. I do not recommend using a stand mixer for this recipe, since it increases the likelihood of overmixing.
Make sure your unsalted butter is cold. Cut your butter into slices or 1/4-inch pieces. Place the pieces of cold butter into the flour mixture. Use two forks or a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the dry mixture until it looks like crumbly sand, with butter pieces that are no bigger than a pea. Work quickly to avoid warming the butter too much.
If you plan to make biscuits or scones often, I highly recommend a pastry cutter like the one linked below to make this process faster!
Add the sourdough discard. Mix into the flour and butter mixture.
Slowly add the milk about 25 grams at a time. Stir with a spoon or spatula after each addition.
Your dough will look very crumbly. Use your hands to quickly mix the dough so that it begins holding together. If the butter is becoming too soft, place the mixture into the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes.
Gently fold in berries until just incorporated. I sometimes place groups of berries between two sections of dough and gently press.
Hand mixing like this helps the dough form together, but it must be done carefully without kneading to avoid developing gluten.
Preshape and Fermentation of Sourdough Discard Berry Scones
Take out pie dish with frozen berries. Press dough onto frozen berries.
Gently pat into a large circle that is about 1-inch thick. Cover dough and put pie plate full of berry scone dough back in freezer for 20 minutes to firm up.
These can be cut and baked right away, but I recommend doing a period of cold fermentation to increase digestibility and enhance flavor. Take the scones out of your freezer and cover the tops of the scones with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for 1 to 12 hours before final shaping and baking.
Shaping and Baking Sourdough Discard Berry Scones
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
After the period of fermentation, take scone dough out of fridge.
Cut a large piece of parchment, place over pie dish. Then, carefully flip dough over onto the large sheet of parchment.
Place the parchment paper with your chilled berry scone dough on the baking sheet. You should see the beautifully placed berries on top!
Use a large sharp knife, cut dough into 8 pieces (if dough is frozen solid from skipping fermentation, allow to thaw until soft enough to cut apart). Carefully spread scones 2 inches apart.
Bake the tender scones for 18 to 20 minutes until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into a scone comes out clean.
Move the sweet scones to a cooling rack for 5 to 15 minutes before serving. Cool for 20 minutes before adding the optional lemon glaze.
Lemon Glaze for Sourdough Discard Berry Scones
In a small bowl, whisk the powder sugar and lemon juice together.
The consistency should be a drizzling consistency, when the whisk is held over the bowl it should have a small stream of icing that runs down and makes designs in the bowl before slowing melting back into the glaze.
Take a fork or your whisk in a back and forth motion over the scones to top with a zig zag lemon glaze design.
5 Tips for Sourdough Discard Berry Scones
- Keeping the butter cold is key in traditional scone recipes as well as this sourdough scone recipe. A few techniques to keep the butter cold and avoid overmixing the scone dough are to use grated frozen butter or use a food processor to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter is in small pieces then turn off to add the wet ingredients. Pulse the mixture until it is just combined with no dry spots.
- The rest in the refrigerator will help make these tender scones more digestible and make the flavors deepen and become more complex. One hour is the minimum. Overnight or 6 to 12 hours will give you the best results with flavor and digestibility.
- You may notice that this scone recipe does not include eggs. Eggs will make your scones more chewy and puffy, which is great in some recipes. But eggs take away the flaky texture we’re aiming for with this recipe.
- Lemon juice in icing can be substituted with ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 to 3 teaspoons milk.
- If you have enough extra sourdough discard, this is a great recipe to double!
More Sourdough Scone Recipes
- The Best Tender Sweet Sourdough Discard Scones (Shortcake)
- Pumpkin Spice Scones (Sourdough Discard)
- Gingerbread Scones with Eggnog Icing (Sourdough Discard)
- Irish-inspired Soda Bread Raisin Scones with sourdough discard (dairy-free)
Savor and Share
These are such a special treat.
So fun to make with fresh picked berries or farmer’s market finds in the peak of the season, but still delicious with store bought berries at other times of the year.
I hope you enjoy making this recipe or save it to make it later. Make sure to share it with a friend!
If you make it, I’d love to hear about it–you can comment on this post or tag me on instagram @livingbreadbaker!
Need more sourdough help?
A competent guide is the big difference from floundering in sourdough with information overwhelm to having confidence and ease in your sourdough baking.
If you are just starting on your sourdough journey, you can get my free Quick Start Sourdough Guide to begin learning some of the key terms and concepts in sourdough. Learn the difference between the sourdough stages of active sourdough starter and sourdough discard as well as how to care for a starter.
You can learn and improve your sourdough baking skills with my books or online courses.
My Intro. to Sourdough online course is comprehensive with video tutorials for each stage of the process to help new or aspiring sourdough home bakers gain a solid foundation for sourdough, the traditional way, to learn all the basics, language, techniques, and the process from start to finish to make sourdough bread. My teaching is straight forward and makes the whole process seem simple. I have helped launch hundreds of eager sourdough bakers onto their own inspiring sourdough journeys.
I also have a Once-a-Week No Knead Sourdough online course, which is my strategy for busy weeks to have sourdough on hand ready to make into country bread, sandwich loaves, English muffins, pizza, bagels, and more! This course is great for absolute sourdough beginners to just get familiarity with sourdough or for veteran sourdough bakers who need to simplify their baking schedule.
Living Bread Baker posts mentioned
How to Store Sourdough Discard for Starter Discard Recipes
The Best Tender Sweet Sourdough Discard Scones (Shortcake)
Pumpkin Spice Scones (Sourdough Discard)
Gingerbread Scones with Eggnog Icing (Sourdough Discard)
Irish-inspired Soda Bread Raisin Scones with sourdough discard (dairy-free)
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online Intro. to Sourdough course
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Sourdough Discard Summer Berry Scones
Equipment
- Tools Needed: food scale, large bowl, forks or pastry cutter, spoon, plastic dough scraper, parchment paper, baking sheet, rolling pin
Ingredients
Scone dough
- 210 g 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour Or 200g (about 1 cup 2 T.) Sonora or soft whole wheat flour (whole wheat adds more flavor and texture)
- 100 grams 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- zest of one lemon
- 113 grams 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold
- 200 grams about 1 1/2 cups sourdough discard, chilled
- 25-30 g 1 2/3 T. to 2 T. whole milk, chilled**
- 70-90 grams berries* about 3/4 cup
Lemon glaze (optional)
- 65 grams about ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 to 3 teaspoons lemon juice
Instructions
- Prepare dish and frozen berries: Get out a pie dish and cut a piece of parchment to fit into the bottom of the pie dish. Place a few berries on that parchment, place dish into freezer.
- Scale: Place a large mixing bowl on the scale. Tare the bowl then add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. (Remember to use the scale’s tare function to remove the weight of the bowl and previous ingredients to only weigh the current item added)
- Stir dry: Stir dry ingredients together.
- Add butter: Butter should be very cold. Cut butter in half then cut each half into eight pieces. Add cubes of butter to the dry mixture. Use two forks or a pastry cutter to cut butter into smaller pieces and distribute through the dough. Mixture should become crumbly and sandy with butter distributed throughout mixture. Some big pieces are okay, no bigger than a pea. If your butter is getting too warm, put mixture into freezer for 1 to 3 minutes to firm up butter.
- Add wet ingredients: Add chilled milk. Stir to combine so that there are no longer any sections of dry flour, don’t overmix. Gently fold in berries until just incorporated.
- Shape dough: Take out pie dish with frozen berries. Press dough onto frozen berries. Gently pat into a large circle that is about 1-inch thick. Cover dough and put back in freezer.
- Chill: Allow dough to firm up in freezer for at least 20 minutes.
- Preheat: When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400º F.
- Transfer dough to baking sheet: Set aside a baking sheet. Take scone dough out of freezer. Cut a large piece of parchment, place over pie dish. Then, carefully flip dough over onto the large sheet of parchment. Place on the baking sheet.
- Divide: Use a large sharp knife, cut dough into 8 pieces (if dough is frozen solid, allow to thaw until soft enough to cut apart). Carefully spread scones 2 inches apart.
- Bake: Place pans into oven and bake 18 to 20 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Cool: Allow loaves to cool for about 20 minutes.
- Glaze: These are delicious unglazed, but the lemon glaze adds brighter flavor and a beautiful look. Whisk glaze ingredients until drizzling consistency. Drizzle over cooled scones.
- Serve: Enjoy a platter of scones with friends or family.
Notes
- The step of freezing the berries adds a beautiful look to the finished scones and it can be done the night before brunch for easier prep in the morning.
- You can use different types of berries in this recipe. Blueberries, blackberries, ollalaberries, and boysenberries work especially well. Strawberries can work, but some varieties have more moisture so they may spread more. Frozen berries work very well in this recipe.
- Lemon juice in icing can be substituted with ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 to 3 teaspoons milk.
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