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Pumpkin Scones

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This pumpkin scone recipe is quick and easy to make, drizzled with a light vanilla glaze, and full of the best cozy pumpkin flavors.

Pumpkin Scones Recipe

Yep, it’s settled. Give me one of these pumpkin scones to go along with my cup of coffee each morning and I think I’m set to go for life.

Seriously, these pumpkin scones are too good.

We’re already on our third batch of them this September and can’t get over what a perfect way they are to begin a (well technically, almost-) autumn morning. They are a breeze to make with simple ingredients that you likely already have in your pantry. They are ultra-soft and light and flaky and a little bit cakey (because, pumpkin purée). They can either be drizzled with a quick vanilla glaze or sprinkled with crunchy turbinado sugar, whichever sweet topping you prefer. But best of all, they are just irresistibly pumpkin-y and made with the perfect amount of warming spices to hit all of those nostalgic and cozy fall flavor notes that we all love.

Barclay and I are completely obsessed with pairing them with our morning coffee, but they would also make for a lovely fall dessert this time of year. Or if you’re feeling generous, we can vouch that friends and neighbors will be thrilled if you decide to part with a few too. I mean, who doesn’t love a good pumpkin scone?!

Time to make some.

Pumpkin Scones | 1-Minute Video

Canned Pumpkin Purée

Pumpkin Scone Ingredients:

Alright, before we get to the full recipe (included at the bottom of this post), here are a few brief notes on the ingredients you will need to make these pumpkin scones:

  • Flour: I’ve only tested this recipe with regular all-purpose flour, but please let us know in the comments if you try it with any alternative flours.
  • Brown sugar: To add a touch of yummy molasses flavor to these scones.
  • Baking powder: This recipe includes a generous amount of baking powder, which really helps the scones to rise up significantly in the oven.
  • Spices: I also used a generous amount of ground cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice (which you can either buy or mix up yourself) to bring out the flavor of that delicious pumpkin.
  • Sea salt: I always use fine sea salt in my kitchen nowadays, so I recommend adding a touch less if you are using iodonized table salt.
  • Butter: In order to get the best texture with scones, it’s essential that your butter be as cold as possible! I actually stuck mine in the freezer for about 20 minutes before using it to try and keep it extra chilly.
  • Pumpkin purée: As always, please note that this recipe uses straight pumpkin purée (as shown above), which is different than canned pumpkin pie filling. The extra moisture in the pumpkin purée definitely makes these scones a touch more cake-like, but it’s deliciously worth it.
  • Buttermilk: I love the extra creamy tang of buttermilk in this recipe, but regular cow’s milk or a plain plant-based milk (such as oat milk or almond milk) would work too.
  • Vanilla extract: Which we will add to both the scones and the glaze.
  • Glaze: I just whisked together a quick glaze made with powdered sugar, buttermilk (or milk) and vanilla extract. But feel free to add some ground cinnamon, ginger or cardamom if you would like to give it some extra spice.

Drizzling Vanilla Glaze on Pumpkin Scones

How To Make Pumpkin Scones:

So my main tip for this recipe — and when making any scones, really — is to do everything you can to keep your butter as cold as possible once it has been added to the recipe. (Measuring all of your ingredients out beforehand, making sure that the butter is completely chilled before dicing it, working quickly once it has been added to the recipe, and chilling the scones in the freezer before baking will all help.)  Also, try to avoid over-mixing the dough as much as possible too. Both of these steps will help to ensure that the scones have a more light and flaky texture and will make them downright irresistible.

Here’s a quick overview of the steps for how to make scones (full recipe included below):

  1. Combine dry ingredients. First things first — we’ll start by combining the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Cut in the butter. Baking lingo for mixing in the butter. In order to avoid touching (and heating) the butter with your hands, I recommend using either a pastry cutter, two forks, or a food processor to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it is combined and forms no larger than pea-sized chunks.
  3. Add in the wet ingredients. Next, we’ll quickly fold the pumpkin purée, buttermilk and vanilla in as quickly and as gently as possible, until no dry streaks in the dough remain.
  4. Shape the scones. Then turn the dough out onto a flour-covered surface, fold it a few times until it holds together and can form a ball (the dough will still be soft and somewhat sticky), press it into an 8-inch round disc, then slice into 8 wedges.
  5. Chill. Transfer the wedges to a parchment-covered baking sheet, spacing them at least 2 inches apart, and place the sheet in the freezer for about 15 minutes while your oven preheats.
  6. Bake. Briefly brush the top of each scone with a bit of buttermilk, which will help it get extra golden in the oven. Then bake for until the scones are cooked through.
  7. Glaze. Finally, whisk all of the glaze ingredients together and drizzle or brush the glaze on the scones once they have cooled down a bit. Serve…and enjoy! ♡

Pumpkin Scones on Baking Sheet

Possible Variations:

Want to customize this pumpkin scone recipe a bit? Feel free to…

  • Sprinkle some turbinado sugar on top: In lieu of (or in addition to) a glaze, I also made a batch of these sprinkled with chunky turbinado sugar on top before baking and they were delicious. Highly recommend if you would like a bit of extra crunch and sweetness.
  • Add baking chips: You could also mix some semisweet or white chocolate chips into the scone dough if you would like.
  • Add nuts: You could also mix in some chopped nuts (such as pecans or walnuts) into the scone dough, or sprinkle some on top of the glaze.
  • Use different warming spices: Feel free to also play around with the types and amounts of warming spices added to this recipe. For example, some ground cardamom would be delicious in these scones too.

Pumpkin Scones with Vanilla Glaze on Baking Sheet

More Favorite Pumpkin Recipes:

Looking for more delicious pumpkin recipe inspiration? Here are a few of my faves for this time of year!

Pumpkin Scone Closeup

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Pumpkin Scones with Vanilla Glaze

Pumpkin Scones

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.8 from 42 reviews
  • Author: Ali
  • Prep Time: 30 mins
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 45 mins
  • Yield: 8 servings 1x

Description

This pumpkin scones recipe is quick and easy to make, drizzled with a light vanilla glaze, and full of the best cozy pumpkin flavors.


Ingredients

Scale

Pumpkin Scone Ingredients:

Vanilla Glaze Ingredients:


Instructions

  1. Combine dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt until evenly combined.
  2. Cut in the butter. Add the diced butter and use a pastry cutter or two forks (or a food processor, see below) to cut the butter evenly into the dry ingredients until the mixture is crumbly and the butter forms no larger than pea-sized chunks.
  3. Add in the wet ingredients. Add in the pumpkin purée, milk and vanilla extract.  Then use a spatula to quickly and gently stir the mixture until no dry streaks remain.  (Try to avoid over-mixing.)
  4. Shape the scones. Turn the mixture out onto a flour-dusted surface and fold the dough over on itself a few times until it holds together and can form a ball.  (The dough will be a bit sticky, so don’t worry.)  Pat the dough down flat into an 8-inch circle.  Then use a large knife or bench scraper to slice the dough into 8 equal-sized pie wedges.  (You may need to wipe off your knife between slices if the dough is sticky.)
  5. Chill. Transfer the wedges to a parchment-covered baking sheet, spacing them at least 2 inches apart.  Then transfer the baking sheet to the freezer for 15 minutes or so while your oven heats.  Heat the oven to 425°F.
  6. Bake. Briefly brush the top of each scone with a bit of buttermilk.  Then transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 13-15 minutes or until the scones are lightly golden on top and cooked through.  Transfer to a wire baking rack to cool.
  7. Glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the glaze ingredients until combined.  (If the mixture seems too thin, add more powdered sugar.)  Then once the scones have cooled a bit, brush or drizzle the glaze on top of the scones.  Serve and enjoy!


Notes

Butter: If you are using unsalted butter, just add an extra 1/4 teaspoon salt to the recipe. Also, it’s important that your butter is completely chilled, so I recommend keeping it in the fridge right up until the minute that you add it to the recipe.

Food processor option: Alternately, you can add all of the dry ingredients to a food processor and pulse to combine.  Add the diced butter and pulse a few times until crumbly.  Then transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and stir in the wet ingredients as directed until combined.

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77 comments on “Pumpkin Scones”

  1. Can you substitute a non-dairy milk for the buttermilk or milk? Looks amazing!! :)

    • Yep! I would recommend plain almond milk or oat milk.

    • I am lactose intolerant and always make my own buttermilk with lactaid free milk. Add 1 table spoon of white vinegar to 1 cup of lactaid free milk and let it stand for 5 minutes & you’ll have yourself healthy buttermilk.






  2. Please provide better printables of your recipes. If I want to keep them in my recipe box, I have to re-write them. This is very inconvenient and wastes paper. I do not beed pictures of canned ingredients nor tools with which I work. On the other hand, these scones sound delicious and I intend to make them. Thanks for listening.

    • If you click the “print” button within the recipe box itself, it will create a one- (or sometimes two-, if it’s a long recipe) printout of just the recipe. Best wishes!

  3. How is the best way to store scones and how long will they last?

    • You can freeze them. Or if you would like to just keep them out for a few days, I recommend storing them in an airtight container (or zip-top bag) with an extra paper towel or two inside to soak up excess moisture. Enjoy!

  4. These look incredible!! I need a treat for this weekends fall weather and I’m thinking this is it!!

  5. Just made these and they’re soooooo good and really easy! I’m going to have to make more today because they won’t last until tomorrow’s dessert. Didn’t have a pastry cutter but it didn’t matter-two forks did the trick. Forgot to add salt until the end—still came out good. May add raisins to the next batch and dried cranberries in another. I’m excited to try a cardamom glaze. There’s so much room to customize! These scones are serving the cozy fall pumpkin spice feeling without being corny and these will be on repeat for the rest of the season.

  6. Haven’t seen cans of pumpkin puree here in Aus but I can make my own. I’d like to know if you think I could make these obviously delicious scones gluten free?

  7. I made these today but exchanged the regular all purpose flour for a basic 1 to 1 gluten free flour and they turned out perfectly! Added some cardamom to the glaze and they are truly next level delicious! Thanks






  8. These were SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!






  9. Well these didn’t work for me :( They are chewy and not flakey and it’s sad. What did I do wrong?






    • My guess is over mixing, which developed too much gluten. I often replace a few tablespoons of flour with corn starch in scones to make them more flaky.

  10. These are AMAZING!!!!!

  11. I love scones and make them frequently. This recipe is absolutely delicious, simple to make, and the perfect flavour for this time of year. Thanks for sharing it!






  12. These were amazing. And for scones, more healthy than most. I added cinnamon to the glaze and it was the best! Shared with friends and got rave reviews. Going to bake more soon!






  13. I used Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour! It was delicious- just needed a bit more milk. I also used almond milk (1/2 c) and lemon juice (1/2 T) to make buttermilk to make the recipe vegan. It was a hit with my whole family! Added some walnuts and dark chocolate chips too- yummy :)






  14. Can you shape the dough the night before and place in the refrigerator overnight instead of the 15 minute freezer time day of? I like the idea of having these ready to go in the morning. Thanks for the recipe!

    • I have made these several times now and last time did form and leave in the refrigerator overnight first for fresh early morning baking and it turned out great. Just wait to brush with the milk/buttermilk until right before you put them in the oven.

  15. These are great!! Pumpkin is perpetually sold out here, but I used canned butternut squash and they came out perfectly. Thanks!






  16. I’m going to try making it gluten free. I’ll let you know how it turns out.






  17. Is the 1/3 cup of buttermilk a misprint? I kept adding more to get all the dry ingredients incorporated so I think I over mixed the dough. They came out tough and chewy. Great flavor. I will try again!

  18. Made these tonight! Awesome – made as written, they were delicious! Nice and moist, but flakey, so good!
    Love your blog and recipes ❤️ Thank you ??






    • What’s with all the “flaky” comments ? Flaky is for pie crust. These do separate into some layers as they bake, but they have a moist, tender crumb, not flakes. The amount of glaze produced by the recipe is less than half a cup, not the big bowl pictured, but everything else in the video is perfect. It does take a lot of stirring to get all the flour incorporated. I suggest mixing the wet ingredients together before adding to the dry. The dough is definitely sticky. Knead on a floured surface as in video to incorporate more flour and decrease stickiness, and flour your bench scraper or knife.






  19. These are SO GOOD. I added cinnamon to the glaze and it turned out amazing. Definitely going to need to double the recipe next time because these are going fast in my house. Thank you Ali!






  20. Delicious, especially with the cardamom glaze! I put my butter stick in the freezer for a while and then grate the butter and put it back in the freezer while I’m doing everything else. My dough does turn out very crumbly and floury when I’m working to form it into a ball..maybe this is how it should be, since the scones always turn out great, but not sure. It would be awesome to have step by step pictures, especially for baking recipes. I also love and appreciate when the recipes have videos! My scones do take about 5 extra minutes to bake. Love this website and have used so many recipes. Thanks so much for all you do and congrats on the baby!! :)






  21. I just baked these scones and they are amazing. Waiting to put the icing on.

    I made them into a rectangle and cut into 15 pieces. I am trying to find nutrition information on this scone.

    I know I know!! It’s a scone. But, I have been successful losing and keeping off 45 lbs for 1 1/2 years by accounting for EVERYTHING I eat.

    Can you help?






  22. These are awesome! SO tasty-and really moist-unlike most scones. Easy to make too! TIP: since they are best the day they are made-I leave a few out when I make them, freeze the rest and I discovered they can be reheated from frozen in the air fryer in about 4 minutes and come out crispy, hot and fresh tasting as though just baked. The first time I made these I cut in the butter as instructed and used forks to blend-the next time I prepped the whole thing in the electric mixer and it was just that much faster and easier. Also-adding fresh ground cardamom to the vanilla glaze was a stellar recommendation; it really finishes off the flavor beautifully. Love this recipe!!






  23. Wow, these are SO GOOD! I didn’t add the glaze because I’m usually looking for less sugar and they were buttery and crispy/flaky at the same time! They also smelled amazing while they were baking.

  24. Absolutely amazing scones!! The dough was quite a bit sticky and had to keep adding flour to my bench (I think the humidity in Hawaii is has something to do with it) and was worried but it came out beautifully! I chose to put large crystallized sugar on the scones prior to going into the oven and also used a glaze after. My husband, who doesn’t really care for pumpkin, loved it! The spices definitely make these scones special! So ono (delicious)!! This is a keeper! Mahalo Nui Loa!






  25. I wish I could give this recipe a million stars. It was so easy and they turned out so well!






  26. Made your butternut squash soup and pumpkin roll this weekend. Both a big hit.

  27. These scones are so fluffy! Can’t wait to try them. Looks delicious with the icing.






  28. Gimme Some Oven has some pretty darn good recipes, and we love the Molasses cookies, so thought I’d try these scones. We like our scones small, so I’m dividing the dough in half then still slicing into 8 pieces, giving me 16 small scones. That’s the only change I’d make for these. Delicious!!!






  29. Gimme Some Oven has some pretty darn good recipes, and we love the Molasses cookies, so thought I’d try these scones. We like our scones small, so I’m dividing the dough in half then still slicing into 8 pieces, giving me 16 small scones. That’s the only change I’d make for these. Delicious!!!






  30. Yum! These are awesome! They fluff up big, so if you wanted to you could divide the dough in half and make smaller scones. I didn’t want to run out for buttermilk so I used whole milk and I also added cinnamon to my glaze. Will make these again and again. Thanks for a great recipe!






  31. Thanks so much for this recipe! These scones are delicious – my husband and son loved them, as did my parents (and me!) :)
    I subbed a cup of whole wheat flour for some of the all purpose flour, and it worked great!
    I was out of pumpkin spice, so just added extra cinnamon – I loved how they turned out.






  32. This was delicious! It was my first time making scones. This recipe was easy to follow. I can’t wait to make these again.






  33. I’ve made several different pumpkin scone recipes, and these are the best by far! I used chai spice instead of the listed spices and made a vanilla glaze.






  34. These are fantastic! And easy — thank you for the food processor option!

  35. I made these and they were awful. Very dense and tough. Kinda annoyed that I used a whole stick of butter and they turned out so bad. I frequently make scones that are delicious and flaky so I was surprised when these turned out the way they did. Will not make again.






    • Was there something different in the process that made this batch not come out right? If you are accustomed to making scones, something in the process must have seemed off, I’m assuming. I ‘m just curious, really.

    • Upon further reflection, I realized that I forgot the baking powder! Doh! So my bad, wish I could delete my bad review. Please forgive me. And I’m trying these again this morning, hopefully I can actually follow the recipe!

  36. I used whole wheat flour and unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and these turned out SO good. I also put turbinado sugar on top instead of the glaze. Definitely my new favorite fall recipe! Thanks so much!






  37. Such a feel-good treat. The spice combination is perfect making it the perfect comfort food. I will make these again for sure!






  38. Thank you for a pumpkin scone recipe that uses buttermilk, no eggs and MORE pumpkin! Most recipes online have 1/3 less pumpkin — not a lot of pumpkin for a pumpkin recipe — and I prefer the texture of eggless scones w/ buttermilk. You have hit all the important features and I look forward to using this recipe for a long time!

  39. Delicious! I added maple syrup instead of vanilla to the glaze and it turned out great.






  40. These are absolutely scrumptious!






  41. I think these are great.. I put a light vanilla glaze on half and followed up with a cinnamon drizzle across them. The other half I made a maple glaze and put pecans on them. Thank you for this recipe.






  42. This recipe makes some huge scones! Next time I’ll make the dough a narrow rectangle and cut 12. Everything else was great. Added some cranberries to the dough. A little ginger in the glaze gives it a nice zip. Definitely will make again!






  43. I subbed in vanilla almond milk for the buttermilk, and they are fantastic. I would make a double batch so you can use pretty much the whole can of pumpkin. What else are you going to use it for?






  44. I just took these out of the oven to enjoy with a morning coffee and they’re so delicious I can’t belive it! I made the glaze with ginger and it makes the flavors shine. So good! Happy Fall!

  45. I used a combination of tiger nut flour, a pre mixed grain free flour and banana flour and they came out great. Definitely versatile recipe and I will make them again.






  46. Wonderful recipe! Delicious! Thank you!






  47. I used some of the extra pumpkin puree to make a pumpkin glaze. I just mixed pumpkin into powdered sugar and spread it over the scones—my kids loved it!






  48. These scones are divine!! I have made them a few times and we love them! I also could consider them “foolproof” to an extent because the first time I made them I actually kneaded them a little and for some reason rolled them out under parchment paper! (Don’t ask me why-I have no clue) The scones still turned out beautifully even if they didn’t look like scones. Each time after that they have turned out perfect. Thank you so much for sharing!

  49. I used high gluten flour because I use that for homemade pizza dough, it was all I had on hand.
    Also used French vanilla creamer to brush tops before baking.
    I rolled out on confectioner sugar…then cut into wedges.

    Baked for 18 minutes.

    They are delicious….easy recipe too!