Dried Cherry Scones are an adorable Valentine’s Day breakfast! These homemade scones are super easy to make and will have your entire family feeling the love.
These Dried Cherry Scones are amazing. They’re buttery and crumbly and the dried cherries add the perfect amount of tart. My kids are obsessed and ever since we started making this homemade version, they’ve been a Valentine’s Day breakfast staple in our house.
This scone recipe was inspired by the delicious pastries at a local shop in our neighborhood. Nestled deep in our local park — which is more like a local forest — is a charming little food shack which sells some of the most enticing baked goods you’ve ever tried. It’s usually packed with an assortment of families, hikers and locals looking to relax and enjoy a light bite before hitting the trails or the playground. We’ve been going to this place since Kenya was a baby and he and his sisters light up anytime they know we’re headed there.
The word “shack” may conjure up the wrong image of this place, but I can’t think of a better name for it. Regardless, it’s totally charming and with pretty much anything I eat there I wonder, “what do they put in this to make it taste so good?” My kids particularly love their scones. Whenever they see these fresh, gorgeous, crumbly pastries stacked up neatly in the window, they get so excited that words seem to fail them.
With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to make heart-shaped, dried cherry scones with the kids. This is a great recipe to cook with your little ones. Mine love mixing the ingredients together with their little hands, shaping the dough into a big circle and then using a cookie cutter to press out hearts. Of course they taste just as yummy if you don’t have any heart shaped cookie cutters!
While the kids still love going for scones at our special shack in the woods, they majorly approved of our homemade version. I guarantee there will be a lot of love in the air at your house too when these come out of the oven!
If you’re looking for more Valentine’s recipes try my Raspberry Cream Cheese Heart Tarts, Waffle Heart Sandwiches or Puff Pastry Berry Hearts!
Dried Cherry Scones
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and chopped
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup dried cherries
- 1 egg, beaten or 1 tablespoon heavy cream*(See step 7)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Whisk the first four ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Add the butter to the flour mixture and mix with either your fingertips, a pastry blender, or two knives until it forms the texture of coarse meal.
- Add the milk and cherries and mix gently until just incorporated (the dough may look a bit dry, but allow it sit for a few minutes and the flour will soak up all the milk).
- Place dough on a lightly floured surface and gently press into a 1″ thick circle.
- Cut out scones using a heart shaped cookie cutter.
- Place scones on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush with beaten egg or heavy cream, if desired (this will give the scones a golden crust)*.
- Bake in oven for 25 minutes.
- Move immediately to a wire cooling rack and serve.
They came out great though, so it must have been okay.
My dough came out super duper sticky also. I used regular white flour. This is my first time making scones, any idea what went wrong? I used extra flour and powdered sugar on my cutting board. I hope they come off my cookie sheet
[…] Dried Cherry Scones (Makes 13 3-inch Heart Scones) […]
[…] Dried Cherry Scones (Makes 13 3-inch Heart Scones) […]
Delish! Wasn’r paying attention and added double the milk, so I doubled the recipe and my daughter is going to make her pre-school teachers little goodie bags for thier afternoon coffee! 🙂 Thanks again Catherine, for another amazing recipe!!!
I will definitely be baking these soon with my kids
I did half whole wheat pastry and half unbleached white and the dough was perfect.
My dough came out really sticky, I used whole wheat pastry flour.
great idea with the pizza cutter for the butter! i also learned from America’s Test Kitchen the trick of freezing the butter first then grating them with a box grater.
Just a quick tip – I don’t have a pastry blender, so I always use a pizza cutter to get the same effect, and it works beautifully! I find it much easier than two knives – just roll it back and forth in the bowl. I’ll definitely be making these before Valentines day. Thanks, Catherine!
Too cute! I’ve been looking for some cute treats to make for and with the kids for valentine’s day and we just recently discovered dried cherries as delicious. Will be making these!
Just made these and they turned out great. I used cherry infused, Ocean Spray, dried cranberries as I couldn’t find dried cherries, and 1% milk. YUM!
It refers to step 7. It is an optional step. Sorry for the confusion, and thank you for the question!
Can you tell me what the asterisk is referring to? I see it next to the heavy cream but it doesn’t seem to be followed up by a note anywhere.
Thanks!
You could use half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour in these! They will be a different texture from the whole wheat flour, though.
Probably a silly question but is there a healthy (or semi-healthy) version of scones? e.g. using party whole wheat flour?