Quick And Easy Mixed Fruit And Nut Scones + Video

Light and packed with flavour these mixed fruit and nut scones are a tea time treat. But these scones go just as well on the savoury side with cheese or a bowl of soup as the traditional sweet cream and jam you’d normally think of.

Why you’ll love these fruit scones

• I’ve used the dried fruit mixture and walnuts I had leftover from all that Christmas baking, so this a great wee recipe for using up baking scraps in the larder.
• You can chop and change this scone recipe to suit whatever dried fruit and nuts you have available.
• This is a quick and easy recipe that will have warm fruit scones on the table within half an hour of you having the idea to make them!

I have adapted this fruit scone recipe from my cookbook Simply Scottish Cakes & Bakes.

Ingredients for mixed fruit and nut scones

Instead of using standard sultanas for these scones I’ve used what was leftover from a bag of mixed dried fruit that was lurking in the larder.

Mixed dried fruit has pieces of cherry, raisins, sultanas, mixed peel and often cranberries in there. I used a luxury mixed fruit which is already soaked in whisky so the dried fruits are plumped up a bit.

Butter – chilled butter please and I’ve gone for unsalted as usual as i like to add salt myself when I’m baking.

Walnuts, these again were leftovers. You could just as easily use almonds or pecans here. I would stear clear of peanuts or cashews!

Self raising (baking) flour. Or use plain flour plus 2 tsp of baking powder for every 150g plain flour if you don’t have any self raising flour.

Milk or butter milk and an egg and a pinch of salt and some sugar.

How to make fruit scones

First sift your flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Sifting gets any little lumps out of your flour and if you do it from a bit of height it also adds air so you get lighter scones.

Rub in the butter using your finger tips or one of those pastry cutters (see my scone making tips)

Add the mixed fruit and nuts and stir it all together then add milk and egg mixed together (full info in the recipe card of course)

Roll out your scone dough and using cookie cutters cut out your scones – see the important scones making notes on this one!

Let them rest for 10 minutes then bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Voila, gorgeous homemade fruit scones in less than half an hour!

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Tips on making the best scones

• Sift your flour to add air for a lighter scone.
• Use chilled butter and cut it into little cubes for making scones. Why use chilled butter? Because you want the butter to melt in the oven and not before that, this gives the flakiness that you want in a good scone.
• When you are mixing the butter with the dry ingredients to start with only use your fingertips or a pastry cutter. You want to handle this as little as possible with hot hands. This is to keep things cold and stop the butter from melting.
• Add the milk (or buttermilk if you are using that) a little at a time. You just want to bring the dough together and don’t want a sloppy sort of dough for scones. You can always add a little more milk if the dough is too crumbly to work with but you can’t take the liquid out.
• When you are cutting your scones press down with the cookie-cutter then lift it straight up and out of the scone dough. DO NOT TWIST the cookie-cutter as you lift it out of the dough. Twisting the cookie cutter will cause your scones to have less of a rise.
• Glazing your scones. I have just used plain milk to glaze my scones but if you want a more golden shine to your scones then mix some egg with milk for the glaze.
• Rest – the scones, not you! Let the scones rest on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before you bake them. This just lets the gluten in the flour do its work and you will get a better scone as a result of those extra 10 minutes.

How many scones does this recipe make

I used a 2.5″ cookie cutter and got 10 fruit and nut scones from this recipe. If you use much smaller cutters and a thinner dough then remember to reduce your baking time as they will bake quicker.

How long do fruit scones keep

Like all scones they are not keepers. Make them and eat ’em!

Can you freeze scones?

Yes, this is the way to keep your scones for later. Make a big batch and freeze them and then for up to 3 months. Then simply defrost and warm them gently before slathering on the butter!

You can also freeze your scone dough if you make extra. Just wrap it well and freeze for up to 3 months.

How to serve these fruit scones

I like to serve my scones with butter and jam. Here I have used my homemade rhubarb and ginger gin jam here.

Get fancy and go for the traditional cream tea and serve your fruit scones with cream and jam.

Go savoury – I love these fruit and nut scones with a bowl of soup. Since they are not sweet and have the earthiness of the walnuts they go really well with the savoury side of life.

Serve them with cheese.

Where do scones originate

Although everyone thinks of scones as being quintessentially British the first reference to them actually comes from Scotland way back in 1513 by the Scottish poet Gavin Douglas..

As you can imagine having written a book on Scottish baking I am a bit of a scone fan.

Looking for more easy scone recipes to try? Then check these out before you go;

Simple easy bake scones

Savoury cheese scones + video

3 ingredient Prosecco scones

Traditional Scottish treacle scones + video

Scotch pancakes (aka drop scones) + video

Scottish tattie scones (potato scones)

Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.