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Strawberry scones with ricotta are well worth baking and enjoying at home or at work if you feel like sharing! This easy English scone recipe incorporates whole milk ricotta cheese and spring’s first fruit, the sweet strawberry, for a deliciously tender and moist scone that’s always light and flavorful!
Got a lot of extra strawberries to use up? Check out my strawberry bacon salad with spring greens and these easy and irresistible boozy macerated strawberries!
Quick Look: Strawberry Scones with Ricotta Recipe
- ⏲️ Prep Time: 20 minutes
- ⏲️ Cook Time: 25 minutes
- ⏲️ Total Time: 45 minutes
- 👨👩👧👦 Servings: 12 scones
- 🌽 Cuisine & Heritage: American & British
- 🍽️ Calories: 371 calories per serving (more nutritional info in recipe card)
- 🥦 Dietary Info: can be made Gluten Free & Dairy Free
- 🟢 Difficulty: Easy
- 🔥 Cooking Method: Oven Baked
- 🌶️ Flavor Profile: Tender and fluffy with a light sweetness and strawberry flavor.
- 🔑 Top Tip: Frozen strawberries may be substituted for fresh; however, they must be chopped and very well drained before using.
- 🍷 Drink Pairings: Your favorite hot tea or coffee would be delicious with these scones!
- ❄️ Storage: Keep the scones tightly wrapped at room temperature for 1-2 days, then freeze for up to 3 months.
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What Makes This Recipe Work
- Secret Ingredient for Moist, Tender Scones Every Time: If you’ve ever encountered a dense, dry scone while indulging during your morning coffee or tea, you may have steered clear of going back for seconds. But these strawberry scones incorporate a single key ingredient in this method, ricotta cheese, which prevents baking up a brick!
- Only 20 Minutes of Easy Prep Needed: The dry ingredients are pulsed with ice cold butter in a food processor, then all it needs are a few brief kneads to bring together the soft, pillowy dough. These ricotta strawberry scones are my easiest bake, so I prepare them often.
- Elegant & Delicious Result: These scones are both rustic and elegant, and are deliciously sweet with a tender crumb that’s a far cry from the doorstops some scone recipes are known to yield. If strawberry shortcake is your jam, do not hesitate to bake these strawberry scones!
“These scones are absolutely delicious!! Making them for the third time.”
Table of Contents
Ingredients
Curious what ingredients you’ll need to whip up these scones? Grab these key ingredients, and you’ll be ready to start baking!
- Ricotta Cheese: Whole milk ricotta is the best choice here. Alternatively, swap with farm cheese, which is a mild white fresh cheese that’s not pressed or aged. Once in your hand, it’s got a crumbly texture and its flavor is very subtle.
- Whipping Cream: A scant amount of whipping cream keeps this easy scone recipe just above that imaginary line that separates dry and dense from crumbly and tender.
- Fresh Strawberries: The addition of a cup or so of chopped strawberries adds flavor and distributes even more moisture while the bake is in the oven.
- Sugar: I am sure to add only enough sugar to the dough to give it flavor. The remaining flavor comes from the natural sugar in the fruit, in this case fresh strawberry, and raw sugar sprinkled over a light brushstroke of whipping cream to the tops just before the batch is popped into a hot oven.
See recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations & Substitutions
- Chocolate Chips: If I am feeling whimsical, I toss in ¼ cup of the itty bitty chocolate chips I find in the grocer.
- Gluten Free: Swap with your favorite measure-for-measure GF flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill or King Arthur.
- Dairy Free: Use dairy free/vegan ricotta, vegan butter, and coconut cream in place of the regular dairy equivalents.
How to Make Strawberry Scones with Ricotta
Scroll down for the full printable recipe or stick around for the step-by-step breakdown with photos to walk you through every delicious detail.
1
Make the Scone Dough
Pulse the dough ingredients (baking powder, flour, sugar, and salt) together with COLD butter in the barrel of my food processor. (Yes, I have a pastry cutter, but it makes more sense to use today’s equipment while making life easy on ourselves.)
Transfer the coarse crumbs to a large bowl and incorporate the wet ingredients. I simply whisk together with the berries and add everything to the dough at once.
2
Kneading & Shaping
Knead for no more than a dozen strokes; the scone dough will be nearly smooth. Shape into a 10×4-inch rectangle, then use a bench scraper to cut in half lengthwise and in sixths crosswise to make 12 rectangles.
Place the rectangles 1 to 2 inches apart on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Use a pastry brush to brush with additional heavy whipping cream. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
3
Baking
Bake for 18 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown and baked through. Remove baking sheet from the oven and loosen scones with a spatula, but do not remove them from the baking sheet. Allow scones to cool as the baking sheet cools.
4
Serving
Serve slightly warm or at room temperature with butter, jam, or simply plain. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee!
Recipe FAQs
Strawberries are wonderful in scones, lending natural sweetness, moisture, and bright flavor to what might otherwise be a plain bake. When chopped small and folded gently into the dough, they create tender pockets of fruit that keep the crumb soft and beautifully balanced.
The biggest missteps are overworking the dough, using warm butter, and adding too much flour. Each of these mistakes can lead to dense, dry “doorstop” scones. Handle the dough lightly, keep ingredients cold, and mix only until just combined to preserve that tender, flaky crumb.
The secret lies in cold ingredients, a light touch, and proper moisture—here, ricotta and cream work quietly behind the scenes to keep the dough soft and delicate. Bake just until golden, then allow the scones to finish gently on the hot baking sheet for a perfectly tender interior.
Serving Suggestions
These strawberry scones with ricotta are worth baking and enjoying at home or at work if you feel like sharing. Their rustic farm-to-table presentation, mild sweetness, and perfectly tender crumb make them a delightful teatime treat. Round out your teatime spread with Southern tea cakes, lavender cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, or chocolate ginger molasses tea cookies.
Expert Tips
- For an extra flavor boost, cut the fresh strawberries into tiny pieces, transfer to a small bowl, and add just a teaspoon of vanilla extract to them. (This works well with chopped frozen strawberries to give them a boost.) Let them sit for about 30 minutes to absorb the vanilla. The taste is subtle in the end–the strawberry the more dominant profile–but it’s noticeable, and it’s good.
- No biscuit cutters are needed for these scones. Shape the dough into a 10×4-inch rectangle and use a bench scraper to make one long cut down the middle, then do five cuts across. This leaves you with 12 squares.
- Much of the bake time will depend on your oven, so you must begin testing for doneness at around 18 minutes. Once they’re tinging on golden brown and baked through, I remove the baking sheet and loosen the scones with a spatula.
- Don’t remove them from the baking sheet; rather, allow them to keep cooking as the hot baking sheet cools down on my counter. This tiny step adds to the overall proper doneness.
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Strawberry Scones with Ricotta
Equipment
- bench scraper or long sharp knife
Ingredients
- 1 cup strawberries, fresh, chopped into fine pieces
- 2½ cups flour, plus 1 tablespoon, divided
- 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- ¾ cup whole milk ricotta cheese, or farmers' cheese
- ¼ cup heavy whipping cream, chilled
- heavy whipping cream, for brushing the tops of the scones
- coarse raw sugar, for sprinkling the tops of the scones
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. In a small bowl, toss together the finely chopped strawberry pieces and the 1 tablespoon of flour. Set aside.
- In a food processor combine the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. Pulse 5 times to combine. Add in the butter pieces and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
- Flour a work surface on which to knead and shape the scone dough. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and set aside.
- In the food processor combine the egg, ricotta, and ¼ cup whipping cream. Pulse until somewhat smooth. Add the ricotta mixture all at once to flour mixture. Next add the strawberry pieces. Using the tines of a fork, stir just until moistened. Resist the urge to overmix.
- Turn dough out onto the floured work surface. Knead dough by folding and gently pressing it for 10 to 12 strokes or until dough is nearly smooth. Dough will be 'soft' to the touch. Shape dough into a 10-inch x 4-inch rectangle. Use a bench scraper to cut in half lengthwise and in sixths crosswise to make 12 rectangles.
- Place rectangles 1 to 2 inches apart on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Use a pastry brush to brush with additional heavy whipping cream. Sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake for 18 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and baked through. Remove baking sheet from the oven and loosen scones with a spatula but do not remove from baking sheet. Allow scones to cool as the baking sheet cools. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature with butter, jam, or simply plain.
Notes
- Frozen strawberries may be substituted for fresh; however, they must be chopped and very well drained before incorporating into the pastry dough.
- For an extra flavor boost, cut the fresh strawberries into tiny pieces, transfer to a small bowl, and add just a teaspoon of vanilla extract to them. (This works well with chopped frozen strawberries to give them a boost.) Let them sit for about 30 minutes to absorb the vanilla. The taste is subtle in the end–the strawberry the more dominant profile–but it’s noticeable, and it’s good.
- No biscuit cutters are needed for these scones. Shape the dough into a 10×4-inch rectangle and use a bench scraper to make one long cut down the middle, then do five cuts across. This leaves you with 12 squares.
- Much of the bake time will depend on your oven, so you must begin testing for doneness at around 18 minutes. Once they’re tinging on golden brown and baked through, I remove the baking sheet and loosen the scones with a spatula.
- Don’t remove them from the baking sheet; rather, allow them to keep cooking as the hot baking sheet cools down on my counter. This tiny step adds to the overall proper doneness.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Perfect as written!
Turned out beautifully golden brown at 18m.
Tender inside, great flavor. Thanks for the recipe.
Chef Katy, your feedback is noted and greatly appreciated! Thank you! It’s getting to be that season again here in the south – strawberries! Jenny
These look incredible! I can’t wait for strawberry season so we can try them out.
Joanne! I can’t wait for you to try them out either! Let me know how you get on with the recipe 😉 Hope you’re well, Joanne 😉 Jenny
These scones are absolutely delicious!! Making them for the third time.
Pauline, your sweet, sweet compliment arrived on a day I really needed a win – THANK YOU SO MUCH! x – Jenny
Thanks for sharing at the what’s for dinner party. Hope you’re having a great weekend.
What a lovely-looking scone. I will have to see if I can modify to get a lower Carbs version
I visited you via The Fifth Sparrow No More: Whimsy Home Wednesday Blog Link Party No. 69
My links: 28+29. We will be honored and happy if you share your links with us at SeniorSalonPitStop. Link under BLOGGING
Your scones are making my mouth water. I am printing the recipe.
SSPS#122
Carol, a great big thank you!! x – Jenny
Your scones look so beautiful and sound delightful! I have to make these on Mother’s Day! A perfect addition to our bruncheon.
Tammy, these scones were basically born on Mother’s Day for my mom! They most certainly WILL be a great addition to your (love this btw!) ‘bruncheon!’ x – Jenny
Hi Jenny, thanks so much for sharing your yummy recipe at the TFT PARTY with us. I love it! I’ll definitely be making a batch of these! I’m featuring you this week at Shoestring Elegance!
Theresa! Thank you!! And thanks for hosting such a fabulous party! X – Jenny
Just looking at the picture makes my mouth water! Beautiful scones! Thanks for sharing at the What’s for DInner Party. Hope your week is awesome.
You’ve got an extra cup of flour in the ingredients but no explanation as to where it goes.
Mike, you have my apologies as the recipe is 2 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon, not 2 1/2 cups + 1 cup +1 tablespoon. When I enter the amounts into the recipe card, everything has a ‘dedicated place for entry’ and I attempted to add the 2 1/2 cups AND the 1 tablespoon in the same entry box. Clearly a no-no, and again, you have my apologies. I have corrected the recipe card and hope you will let me know how these turned out for you.