Cinnamon Brown Sugar Scones (with Video)
A delicious, melt-in-your-mouth scone recipe perfect for brunch or an afternoon tea break, these Brown Sugar Cinnamon Scones pair wonderfully with jams, creams or just a dollop of butter.
Brown Sugar Scones Recipe
For our Downton Abbey movie night party, I prepared a full spread of high tea-inspired treats to indulge my guests with – from scones and old-fashioned gingerbread cake to savory Yorkshire puddings stuffed with roast beef and homemade herb and garlic cream cheese. (Our Homemade Bakewell Tarts would have also made a great addition to the menu.)
After living in England for a bit, I have a huge soft spot for a traditional cream tea. It’s like a scaled down afternoon tea with plenty of scones, jams and clotted cream. I wish that more local places offered them, but I’m more than happy to just whip up my own and indulge.
These brown sugar scones lend themselves perfectly to an afternoon indulgence, with a tender, chewy crumb and a melt-in-your-mouth, warming combination of brown sugar, cinnamon and plenty of butter.
If desired, you can add a drizzle of royal icing or cream cheese frosting overtop to make them more like Starbucks scones, but I prefer to get my sweetness by slathering these scones with clotted cream and jam. Butter and jam, if in a pinch.
To ensure your scones are airy and light, make sure to use fresh baking powder and do not over-knead the dough when shaping the scones. Press the dough just enough to form it into a semi-even circle and resist the urge to handle it more than that. (Scones should have scraggly nooks and crannies to capture those delicious spreads.)
Can I freeze these brown sugar scones? Yes, these scones can be prepared ahead of time and frozen before baking. To freeze, prepare the scones right up until the point that you need to brush them with heavy cream. Simply cut into wedges and freeze on a baking sheet. Then remove from the freezer and place the individual wedges in an airtight ziptop freezer bag or your favorite freezer container. (This set of freezer containers is a crazy bargain.)
When ready to bake, remove from the freezer and place on a baking sheet until thawed. Brush with butter or cream before baking as directed. (You may need to bake a bit longer if they are not fully thawed.)
Check out our quick video to see how easy it is to make these brown sugar scones – and then don’t forget to scroll down to grab your free printable recipe card:
More Scrumptious Scone Recipes
Brown Sugar Scones Ingredients
- All-Purpose Flour
- Brown Sugar
- Baking Powder
- Butter, cold and cut into small pieces
- Heavy Cream
- Nutmeg
- Cinnamon
- Raw Sugar <– can use Coconut Sugar
Tip: add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract, or do half and half for even more depth of flavor.
Tip #2: I really love how tender heavy cream makes these scones, but you can use milk or half and half cream, if desired.
Kitchen Tools You May Find Helpful
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Mixing Bowl
- Whisk
- Pastry cutter or large fork
- Sharp kitchen knife
- Baking Sheet
- Silicone Baking Mat
How to Make Brown Sugar Scones
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and coconut sugar until well-combined.
Add the cold butter and use a pastry cutter or fork to combine with flour mixture until small pea-sized pieces of butter remain.
Stir in 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream until a cohesive but not sticky dough forms.
Fold the dough out onto a floured cutting board and form into a large circle, about 1” thick.
Slice the circle into 8 equal triangles using a pizza cutter.
Place the scones on a lined baking sheet. Brush with the remaining heavy whipping cream.
Bake for 22-25 minutes until scones are lightly golden.
Grab your free printable recipe card for our cinnamon brown sugar scones recipe:
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Cinnamon Brown Sugar Scones
These brown sugar scones lend themselves perfectly to an afternoon indulgence, with a tender, chewy crumb and a melt-in-your-mouth, warming combination of brown sugar, cinnamon and plenty of butter.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 cup butter, COLD and cut into small pieces
- 1/2 cup heavy cream PLUS 1 Tablespoon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 Tablespoons raw sugar or coconut sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375ºF.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and coconut sugar until well-combined.
- Add the cold butter and use a pastry cutter or fork to combine with flour mixture until small pea-sized pieces of butter remain.
- Stir in 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream until a cohesive but not sticky dough forms.
- Fold the dough out onto a floured cutting board and form into a large circle, about 1” thick.
- Slice the circle into 8 equal triangles using a pizza cutter.
- Place the scones on a lined baking sheet. Brush with the remaining heavy whipping cream.
- Bake for 22-25 minutes until scones are lightly golden.
Notes
Tip: Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla or half a teaspoon vanilla and half a teaspoon of almond extract for more depth of flavor.
Tip #2: this recipe yields a dense scone perfect for slathering on cream or jams. If you prefer a flakier scone, incorporate 1 egg into the batter while adding the milk/cream.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
8Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 296Total Fat: 17gSaturated Fat: 11gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 47mgSodium: 191mgCarbohydrates: 34gFiber: 1gSugar: 15gProtein: 3g
Sugar, Spice and Glitter uses an auto-generate nutrition calculator. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate unless analyzed in a scientific lab, so these should be considered more of a guideline than medical information.
I hope you love these cinnamon brown sugar scones as much as my friends did! They didn’t leave me any leftovers after our movie night!
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Step 3 should be baking POWDER and not SODA, right?
Yes, sorry – no baking soda in the recipe.
Your recipe looked really good but I’m not likely to make it. After 2 dozen tries, including subscribing to your email list, I couldn’t print the recipe. 2 dozen times I always ended up at the top of the post, having to scroll down through the recipe to reach the print function to not work yet again.
Also way too many darn ads – pop ups and embedded, interfering with the content.
Have mercy on your readers. Have you every tried to negotiate one of your owns posts? Really passed off.
Hi Judy,
Thank you for letting me know the issue. I reached out to the team who developed my recipe card and they fixed the issue. I tried e-mailing you the recipe, however your e-mail provided didn’t work for me.
I completely understand that some people are turned off by ads – however, I do use my own site (to reference my own recipes) and no, I do not find my ad percentage to be excessive compared to other sites. My ads not only allow for me to spend the time and money developing these recipes and cover the cost of maintaining this site, but they also provide for my family. It’s shocking to me that we’ve become a culture that has gone from purchasing cookbooks and being thankful for the privilege, to being insulting and unappreciative of free content if that content requires that we encounter ads or scrolling. The video ad can be easily exited out of – but it’s also the most affordable way for me to provide video recipe tutorials to readers, which many have requested and find helpful. I opt out of intrustive pop-up ads or ads that overtake images, etc.
I made these twice. Once w/an egg and once without. The batch with the egg was too moist and spread way out. The batch without the egg was more like a scone although not quite as high as they should have been. That being said, they taste amazing! My husband didn’t care that they looked like a giant spice cookie. LOL! I think I may need to replace my baking powder. Hoping the 3rd times a charm!
Hi Linda,
Thanks for your comment! I’m glad they tasted good.. I’m frustrated because I use the same base recipe for all of my scones and this seems to be the only one that I’m getting comments on that the scones aren’t turning out. I am going to re-attempt the recipe myself and see what’s going on. I know that during the pandemic butter was causing issues but I thought that had stopped… I really wish I had more insight, but I will test and adjust the recipe if needed.
The video says egg and vanilla… but I’m not seeing that in the recipe below? Am I crazy?
You’re not crazy! They are optional ingredients, mentioned in the recipe notes.
I like incorporating an egg into a scone like my blueberry scones because I tend to just enjoy those plain or with a bit of butter – it makes the scone a bit more dense/moist (more cake-like than biscuit-like); for this recipe, I tend to serve the brown sugar scones with cream or jams, so I like the flakier texture created without the egg, but it’s really down to personal preference.
I made this recipe but my dough was very crumbly and not at all together to be able to roll them out. I add more cream to make it workable and they spread out. What did I do wrong? 1/2 cup of liquid didn’t seem like enough
Hi Arleena,
The dough will be very crumbly and should just be pressed together to form the round circle, not rolled out. Sometimes you do have to “work” the dough a bit to get it to stick, but not to the point of kneading it because you don’t want the butter to get too warm. I’m not sure if the confusion about the texture or if there is potentially something else in the recipe that caused the issue but happy to help troubleshoot.
Hello – I made the recipe to the tee and the dough turned out to be very loose, not dry and crumbly and mentioned in the other posts. Baked them up and they only rose about 3/4 of an inch high. Flat scones really suck! They smell really good cooking. Unfortunately, I will be deleting this recipe. Bummer!
Hi Jackie,
Thanks for letting me know. You and the commenter below you both had issues with this recipe not rising so I am prioritizing troubleshooting this recipe ASAP to see if there are any errors in my write-up. I will also add a step-by-step recipe that will hopefully help, as over handling the dough will definitely cause them to be dense, so I want to demonstrated what the right amount of kneading looks like. (Not saying that was your issue – but I really don’t know why some people have 5-star experiences and others are having bad experiences. And I’m very frustrated on your behalf as I pride myself on sharing great, reliable recipes.)
This recipe was legitimately awful. Followed it to a t and basically just ended up with flat cookies 😭 The ingredients all sounded great but I dunno…definitely not using this recipe again.
Hi J,
Thanks for commenting. This is two commenters in a row that had a bad experience, so I’m going to prioritize testing this recipe again and adding a how-to video to ensure there are no mistakes in my write-up and also demonstrate what the dough should look like at every step.
I’m really sorry that you had a bad experience with my recipe. It’s very frustrating for me as I really pride myself on sharing delicious, reliable recipes and I know the frustration of taking the time to make something (along with the cost of ingredients) and it doesn’t work out.
This recipe is great! I’ve made these many times and everyone that tries them loves them! I used chai extract instead of vanilla extract, it adds a little extra flavour, but I find the scone delicious with vanilla extract as well.