These Apple Pie Scones are filled with delicious spiced apple pieces. They are wonderful for brunch with tea and coffee, or as a midday snack. These slightly spiced scones are just perfect for Autumn.
Melt in your mouth Apple Pie Scones are made with buttermilk, heaps of fresh apple pieces lightly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. They are perfectly soft and moist, and will be just the thing to serve for an Autumn brunch get together.
How to Make Apple Pie Scones
Here’s another adaptation of the Basic Buttermilk Scones to perfect your scone making skills. This time, we are making them with fresh apple and warm spices to give you all the Autumn feels. For these scones, you will need to precook the filling slightly, just to get the sugar and the spices all mixed in there and flavor the apple pieces.
Then we prepare the batter as usual by working the cubed butter into the flour, then toss in the cooked apple pieces (after you let them cool completely). Now the next step is to add in a mixture of buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract. For these special Apple Pie Scones, you’ll also add in the sugar syrup from the cooked apple. That’s where the rest of the delicious spices are hanging out.
Remember to reserve some buttermilk/egg mixture to use as egg wash to enhance browning while baking. Typically we would use turbinado sugar to sprinkle the top of the scones. However, for these scones we want to sprinkle granulated sugar mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom to keep them extra special. As always, I love using my insulated baking sheet for scones in general to keep the bottom of the scones from getting too brown.
The dough for these scones is going to be wetter than typical since we have the extra liquid from the syrup, so use enough flour while working with the dough to keep things from sticking everywhere. But make sure you don’t over do it and add to much flour. This would dry out the scones, and we want to keep them super soft and moist.
Fall is almost here and these Apple Pie Scones would be perfect to serve up this weekend. I hope you’ll enjoy them and I personally can’t wait for the wonderful weather that’s about to arrive!
More Delicious Buttermilk Scones
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment, rate it and don’t forget to tag me @wildwildwhisk on Instagram. I’d love to see what’s cooking up in your kitchen. Cheers!
This recipe was originally published on September 24, 2014. The recipe has been retested to yield a smaller number of servings, photos and post have been improved and updated.
📖 Recipe card
Apple Pie Scones
Ingredients
Apple Pie Filling
- 1 medium apple
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoon brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- A pinch of nutmeg
- A pinch of cardamom
Scones
- 2 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 7 tablespoon unsalted butter - cubed & cold
- 1 large egg
- ⅔ cup buttermilk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Sugar Topping
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- A pinch of nutmeg
- A pinch of cardmom
Instructions
Make Apple Pie Filling
- Peel and core the apple and cut into small bite size pieces, this will yield about 2 cups.
- Add 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter to a small sauce pan and melt over medium heat.
- Add apple, sugar and spices to the pan and cook until sugar is melted.
- Continue to cook over medium low heat until the apple is starting to soften and the mixture is bubbly and thickened slightly.
- Take off the heat and allow to cool.
Make Scones
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar with the spices and set aside to use later.
- Add flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder to a medium mixing bowl and mix to combine.
- Toss the cubed butter in the flour mixture and work it into the flour with the tip of your fingers until about large pea size. Toss in the cooked apple pieces without the syrup.
- In a measuring cup, add buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine.
- Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid mixture, reserving about 2 tablespoon to use as egg wash. Add the left over syrup from the cooked apple.
- Fold with a spatula or wooden spoon until a wet dough forms.
- Turn the dough out onto a well-floured board, fold it over itself a 2 - 3 times, and shape into a circle about 1 ½” thick.
- Cut into 8 scones.
- Place the scones on the prepared baking sheet, brush the top and sides with the reserved egg wash, and sprinkle generously with spiced sugar.
- Bake for 23 - 24 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let cool completely on a wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe inspired by Joy the Baker’s Apple Pie Biscuits.
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Joan
I made these and you were right the dough was much too sticky and I didn’t want to add as much extra flour as you suggested. I had to throw out the first batch. Dough was terrible ! I changed the recipe and didn’t cook the apples first. I peeled them and added the spices, only used 1/2 cup of buttermilk which is what I normally use for all my scones. The dough came together as it should and they were tasty.
Trang Doan
I’m sorry it didn’t work out the first time for you but I’m glad you were able to try the scones with some adjustments. Thank you for leaving a review and letting us know of your changes which will be useful for others!
kathy
made this got rave r
Colleen Gallagher
Fabulous!! Thank you for the recipe! Soft and light, and perfect!
Mojoblogs
This is perfect! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I am excited to make them 🙂
Linda Wordinger
The recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of baking powder – is this correct?
Trang Doan
This is correct, not a typo.
Ina
I love apple pie as well as scones, so I tried your recipe. Such a great combination! thank you for sharing 😁
María
Absolutely divine! The spiced topping and egg wash gives it such a nice crunchy bite while the filling is light and fluffy. So delicious!
Trang
Thank you so much!
SUSAN CHORMANN
i used plain unsweetened kefir and these were wonderful.
Sandra Padgett
Can you substitute whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour?
Trang
Yes, whole wheat flour should work fine, it may result in slightly drier scones so don’t use too much extra flour to roll. You can also try white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour. Let me know if you like how it turns out!
Margaret
The mixture was indeed quite wet, but it handled well enough after a generous dusting or three of flour as I was folding it. The apple with the syrup smelled DIVINE as it cooked–I wanted to just eat it with a spoon!
They swelled nicely in the oven, but they did also spread a bit. I had to cook them a little bit longer, because they still looked a tad wet.
The texture was deliciously soft and light, with the apple pieces just melting in your mouth, and the spices just slightly warming your tongue. I like my apple pie a bit spicier than this, so I might tweak this recipe next time to include more of those, and maybe I’ll use a bigger apple. Those are just my preferences, though, so I rate it five stars because the dough itself baked up beautifully–a truly luscious experience!
Trang
Thank you so much Margaret! You described it so beautifully, my mouth waters just reading your comment. I might have to run out to buy some apple and make these scones this weekend. So glad you enjoyed them!
Marie Roffey
I love making scones. Can’t wait to try these. Thanks for a great recipe
Kenneth Orloff
scones, my favorite coffee food. These look and sound delicious. Thanks for making my morning.
Arlene Ross
Hi
When I cuts the scones to put them on the baking sheet, the filling all comes out…..????
Trang
Hi Arlene, I’m sorry that happened! Was the filling too watery? Or maybe you could roll it up tighter?