Fresh Plum Scones Recipe - Easy bake for afternoon tea – Yum Eating (2024)

Easy to make plum scones recipe with fresh plums and cream. Delicious for an afternoon snack or luxury breakfast! The perfect recipe for autumn or fall and any time of the year.

Why make this recipe?

• Quick & easy to make scones recipe
• Perfect instead of a cake, afternoon snack or at a quick breakfast on a run!
• Light cakey texture, melt in your mouth taste (just the best scones you’ll ever taste!)

MORE CAKE RECIPES

• Lemon Drizzle Cake >>
• Filled Apple or Poppy Seeds Cakes >>

My top tips on making plum scones recipe successfully the first time round

Only handle the dough as little as possible – don’t over mix it or knead it or you’ll end up with tough scones.

Use good quality plums with a flavour

Use vanilla essence or paste

The cream is what makes this recipe crumble and literally melt in your mouth

Story behind the fresh plum scones recipe

Scones are often eaten with clotted cream and jam and served in the afternoon as a part of an afternoon tea.

In old English recipes, plum bread or scones are not actually made from plums and certainly not from fresh plums.

Currants and raisins (for some reason) were referred to as ‘plums’. I found that when I was researching old plum bread recipe, which is a kind of sweet enriched dough.

Either way, I think fresh plums are lovely in this recipe, but if you see versions with dry prunes or plums or even raisins or currants, you’ll know these recipes are sort of all right in their own way!

Any specialist equipment needed?

No, not at all, a baking tray, oven and your hands is all you need to make this plum scones recipe!

Ingredients & Possible Substitutions

Plums

Use fresh, ripe, but not too soft plums to make this recipe. Any type of plums will work with this recipe.

If you don’t have plums you can also replace it with firm apples, raspberries or blueberries.

You can also use dried prunes or raisins, but I would half the amount of the fresh plum quantity.

This is because dried fruit is much sweeter and concentrated than fresh fruit. You might like to also soak the fruit in tea or something similar to make them less dry.

Flour

For this plum scones recipe we will be using plain – all purpose flour suitable for cake making.

If you don’t have enough of all purpose (plain) flour, you can also mix it with other low gluten or gluten-free flours such as spelt, lupin, buckwheat or potato flour.

If you decide to use just gluten free flours make sure you add xanthan gum (about 1 teaspoon)

Sugar

White sugar or caster sugar is best for this scones recipe. You can also use a mix of brown or golden caster sugar, but it will change the flavour of your scones.

If you have a particularly strong flavoured plums, you could get away with using 25-50% light brown sugar with regular white sugar or caster sugar. Anything more than that will probably be too strong as a flavour.

Baking powder

It might seem like there is quite a lot of baking powder in this recipe, but it’s all needed. Measure it out carefully – level tablespoon is all we need.

Salt

Salt helps to bring all the flavours together, so make sure you add some in. Fine cooking salt is best or add the salt to the cream first to dissolve if using seasalt.

Butter

Unsalted butter is best for this recipe. If you don’t have enough unsalted butter, you can use 50% salted and 50% unsalted, but don’t add any extra salt to your recipe.

Egg

One medium or large egg.

Cream

This is the secret ingredient in this recipe, that just

Vanilla extract

Good quality vanilla extract makes a big difference in this recipe. I use vanilla paste or strong vanilla extract that’s full of flavour and works well with the subtle flavour of plums.

How to make fresh plums scones

In a large bowl, add the flour and the butter and rub the butter into the flour with your hands.

Add the sugar, baking powder and salt and mix well.

Add the chopped plums and mix them in until they are all covered.

In a mixing jug measure out the cream or buttermilk, add egg and vanilla extract and whisk together with a fork.

Add the cream mixture into the flour and very briefly mix together until you have a crumbly mixture.

Turn the dough mixture on to your kitchen counter and bring together to form a round. Don’t overmix – if it looks crumbly, that’s absolutely fine!

Place on your baking tray and cut down with a baking scraper into 6-8 pieces (you can also do just 4 if you like). Slightly separate the scone vedges and move them apart to let them bake.

Preheat your oven to 400 F (200C).

Brush the top of your plum scones with extra cream or milk.

Bake your scones for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. If they are getting brown too quickly reduce the oven temperature by 50F or 20 C.

Check that your scones are ready by pushing a wooden toothpick or wooden skewer through (if it comes out clean – dry, your scones are ready).

Cool on a cooling rack and eat on the same day or freeze for later.

How else you can make this recipe?

Use a slightly different flour – for example wholemeal cake flour or gluten free flours. Swap the plums for other fruit, like blueberries, raspberries, apples or prunes.

Firmer fruit is better than softer one, for example bananas would get too runny for this recipe. You can also use dried fruit.

Allergies & dietary requirements

As it is, this plum scones recipe contains wheat (gluten) and milk, so it’s not suitable for people with gluten intolerances and vegan diets.

Plums are also not too great for Low FODMAP, so swap them for raspberries or blueberries instead.

Can I scale up or down this recipe?

Yes, absolutely, you can easily half this recipe or double it to make more scones. This is perfect if you are baking for a large crowd or want to freeze some scones for later.

How to serve plum scones

Scones are perfect as they are! Warm from the oven, eat them on their own or add a bit of butter and jam or clotted cream.

The plum flavour would go equally well with chocolate spread. The only thing is missing is a perfect cup of coffee.

Can this recipe be made in advance?

Whilst scones are best on the day you bake them (or few hours after you’ve taken them out of the oven), you can bake them in advance (say 1 day) and then re-heat them in the oven or microwave before serving.

If you want to bake them even earlier before you need them, I would freeze them once they are cool and then defrost them on the day you need them. Warm them up in the oven before you serve them for 5 minutes on 180C or 350C or in a microwave for 10-15 seconds.

How to store scones

If you have any leftovers, your plum scones will be fine for 2-3 days in a paper or plastic bag in a bread bin or something similar.

You can also freeze plum scones and keep them in the freezer for up to 3-6 months (maximum). For best results, leave the scones to cool down in a room temperature and freeze on the same day.