Easy Cranberry Orange Scones

This cranberry orange scones recipe is a keeper! They turn out light and flaky, with fresh orange zest and dried cranberries.

My Mom makes a lot of scones. She inherited her love from her Mom, and I can only imagine it goes back from there. Now, here I am sharing our favorite recipe with you! You can top these with bit of sugar, or add my delicious orange glaze.

Scones are really easy to make. If you’ve made homemade biscuits, you’ll recognize many of the steps in our recipe below. For more scones recipes, see our classic scones, blueberry scones, blackberry lemon scones or these pumpkin scones.

Key Ingredients

• Cranberries: I use dried cranberries in my photos, but you can absolutely use fresh or frozen cranberries in these scones. If you opt for fresh cranberries, keep in mind that they are more tart, so you might want to add a touch more sugar to the dough (I’ve shared tips below the recipe).
• Orange: I use plenty of orange zest to infuse the dough with a bright citrus flavor. For more orange flavor, try my optional orange glaze, which you’ll find in the recipe below.
• Flour: I stick to all-purpose flour for my scones. It consistently yields light and flaky results.
• Baking powder: This adds a little extra lift and lightness to the scones. I also use baking powder when making this strawberry shortcake!
• Butter: I always use very cold butter when making these. The cold butter creates steam in the oven, resulting in that delightful flaky texture we all love.
• Heavy cream: I’m partial to cream scones because they tend to be lighter and more tender than those made solely with butter.
• Honey: I love the subtle sweetness honey adds to these cranberry orange scones. For an extra special touch, try using orange blossom honey! Feel free to substitute with sugar.

Find the full recipe with measurements below.

Tips for Making the Best Cranberry Orange Scones

Tip 1: Use chilled ingredients. Using cold ingredients is really important when making scones. The butter should be chilled and hard, and you want to use the cream straight from the refrigerator.

To make scones, you will “cut in” very cold butter. I use a pastry blender, but cold hands or a food processor will work. The goal is to distribute small pieces of butter throughout the flour. As the scones bake, these little bits of butter create steam pockets that make the dough rise, resulting in a light and tender texture (the same happens in my butter pie crust recipe and these biscuits).

Tip 2: Add fresh orange flavor. You can add orange flavor in two ways to these scones. First, add a generous amount of orange zest to the dough itself (similar to how we add lemon zest to these blueberry scones). Second, you can make our orange glaze. It’s optional, but it’s really easy! Stir powdered sugar and fresh orange juice together, then drizzle the glaze over the baked and cooled scones.

Tip 3: Don’t overwork your dough. When making these, gentle handling is key! Overworking the dough develops gluten, which can make your scones less fluffy and tender. That’s why I skip the biscuit cutter and lightly pat the dough into a circle before cutting them into 8 triangles.

Tip 4: Sprinkle sugar on top (optional). Transfer your triangles of dough onto a baking sheet, leaving a little room (they will spread slightly), and then brush them generously with cream. For a beautiful, shiny, textured top, sprinkle coarse sugar over the cream and bake.