My Recipe Box - Buttermilk Scones

 September 2025 - Toronto ON

I have all kinds of scone recipes but I decided to make the old Irish recipe that my Irish mother used.
I had a copy in an old Irish cookbook that I've had forever.

Traditional Irish buttermilk soda scones used three simple ingredients, flour, baking soda and buttermilk. No eggs, no butter, just a simple dough.

Today buttermilk is made by adding acid to regular milk and the fat content is not as high as the real buttermilk of years gone by. You can overcome this by substituting some heavy whipping cream for buttermilk in most of my baking recipes. I happen to always have heavy whipping cream.

I slightly altered the recipe after reviewing others.

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 cups of flour

2 teasp. of baking powder

Salt

1 teasp baking soda

3/4 cup frozen grated butter OPTIONAL I didn't use

Sugar OPTIONAL 

Heavy cream or egg for brushing on top OPTIONAL

I added

Raisins and lemon peel

Set oven to 400F.

Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk. Mix the flour with baking powder with the buttermilk, add a pinch of salt, and blend until a soft dough forms.

Other options:

Cranberries

Blueberries

Orange

Chocolate chips - but I wouldn't do that

Savoury

Cheese and herbs

Bacon and cheese