Want to eat brownies for breakfast? Hereโs the acceptable solution! These melt-in-your-mouth chocolate scones are rich and moist inside with deliciously crumbly edges. Dunk in a glistening glaze coating, then top with a drizzle of chocolate.
We call these Triple Chocolate Scones Supreme because thatโs exactly what they are: supremely chocolatey. These are brownies masquerading as scones. And your kitchen will smell like fresh-baked brownies for the rest of the day.
These Chocolates Scones Are:
- Crumbly on the edges
- Soft, moist, and dense in the centers
- Filled with melty chocolate
- Topped with glaze, then more chocolate
- Literally brownies for breakfast
Behind the Recipe
We use my favorite basic scones recipe as the starting point. To make them chocolate, we swap out some flour for unsweetened cocoa powder. Since cocoa powder typically dries out baked goods, we add a little extra liquid. (In this case, heavy cream.) Lastly, we add a generous handful of semi-sweet chocolate chunks to the scone dough, then finished the scones with glaze and a chocolate drizzle.
Overview: How to Make Chocolate Scones
These chocolate scones are surprisingly easy. First, mix the dry ingredients together. You need flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Second, cut cold butter into the dry ingredients. You can use a pastry cutter, 2 forks, or your hands. A food processor works too, but it often overworks the scone dough. To avoid overly dense scones, work the dough as little as possible.
Next, whisk the wet ingredients together. You need heavy cream, 1 egg, and vanilla extract. These are go-to wet ingredients in scones. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add some chocolate chips or chunks, then gently mix together. Form the dough into a disc, then cut into 8 wedges.
One of our tricks: To obtain a flaky center and a crumbly exterior, keep scone dough as cold as possible. We highly recommend chilling the shaped scones for at least 15 minutes prior to baking. You can even refrigerate overnight for a quick breakfast in the morning!
After that, bake the scones before glazing.
Frozen Grated Butter
Frozen grated butter is key to scone success and youโll see me use it again in these ham & cheese scones. Like with pie crust, you will work cold butter into the dry ingredients. The cold butter coats the flour, which creates tons of flour coated butter crumbs. When the butter/flour crumbs melt as the scones bake, they release steam which creates all the delicious scone flakiness we love. The exterior becomes crumbly, crunchy, and crisp.
Refrigerated butter might melt in the dough as you work with it, but frozen butter will hold out until the oven. And the finer the pieces of cold butter, the less the scones spread and the quicker the butter mixes into the dry ingredients. Remember, you donโt want to over-work scone dough.
We recommend grating the frozen butter with a box grater.
Prevent Dry Scones with This Glaze
We add a glaze coating to my chocolate scones. Why? We find that chocolate scones can dry out pretty quickly. And in our recipe testing, we found that the best remedy for this is to coat them in a very thin, very simple glaze made from water, confectionersโ sugar, and vanilla. We do not use milk because it makes the glaze a little too thick. We were looking for a clear glaze.
Give the scones a quick dunk in the glistening glaze while theyโre warm. The glaze will set on the scones as they cool. And if youโre REALLY in the mood for chocolate, donโt forget about the melted chocolate drizzle on top. You could even finish them off with salted caramel, too, just like I do with these apple cinnamon scones!
These brownie-like scones are crumbly on the edges, moist in the centers, and exploding with chocolate. The bites with the melted semi-sweet chocolate chunks inside are the best.
Even More Chocolate Recipes:
- Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding
- Chocolate Croissants (Pain au Chocolat)
- Chocolate Truffles
- Chocolate Cupcakes & Chocolate Cake
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake & Chocolate Raspberry Cake
- Chocolate Lava Cakes
Triple Chocolate Scones
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 8 large scones
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Basically brownies pretending to be scones! Read through the recipe before beginning. You can skip the chilling for 15 minutes prior to baking, but I highly recommend it to prevent the scones from over-spreading.
Ingredients
- 1 and 2/3 cups (209g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/3 cup (27g) unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or dutch process)
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, frozen
- 1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon (135ml) heavy cream
- 1 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
Glaze & Topping
- 1 cup (120g) confectionersโ sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) water (black coffee works too!)
- one 4 ounce bar semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
Instructions
- Whisk flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. Grate the frozen butter using a box grater. Add it to the flour mixture and combine with a pastry cutter, two forks, or your fingers until the mixture comes together in pea-sized crumbs. Place in the refrigerator or freezer as you mix the wet ingredients together.
- Whisk heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the flour mixture, add the 6 ounces of chopped chocolate, then mix together until everything appears moistened.
- Pour onto the counter and, with floured hands, work dough into a ball as best you can. Dough will be sticky. If itโs too sticky, add a little more flour. If it seems too dry, add 1-2 more Tablespoons heavy cream. Press into an 8-inch disc and, with a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut into 8 wedges.
- Place scones on a plate or lined baking sheet (if your fridge has space!) and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400ยฐF (204ยฐC).
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. After refrigerating, arrange scones 2-3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet(s).
- Bake for 22-25 minutes or until edges and top are set. Chocolate scones are done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes as you prepare the glaze.
- Make the glaze: Whisk the confectionersโ sugar, vanilla, and water together. Dunk warm scones into the glaze and place on a wire rack with a baking sheet or paper towels underneath to catch the glaze as it drips down. The glaze will set after several minutes, but you can serve right away. Before serving, melt the 4 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave in 15 second increments, stirring after each increment until melted. Drizzle over scones.
- Leftover glazed or un-glazed scones keep well at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Notes
- Freeze Before Baking: Freeze scone dough wedges on a plate or baking sheet for 1 hour. Once relatively frozen, you can layer them in a freezer-friendly bag or container. Bake from frozen, adding a few minutes to the bake time. Or thaw overnight, then bake as directed.
- Freeze After Baking: Freeze the baked and cooled scones before topping with glaze and chocolate drizzle. I usually freeze in a freezer-friendly bag or container. To thaw, leave out on the counter for a few hours or overnight in the refrigerator. Warm in the microwave for 30 seconds or on a baking sheet in a 300ยฐF (149ยฐC) oven for 10 minutes. Before serving, top with glaze and chocolate drizzle.
- Overnight Instructions: Prepare scones through step 3. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Continue with the recipe the following day.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Box Grater | Pastry Cutter | Silicone Spatula | Bench Scraper | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Cooling Rack
- Over-spreading: Start with very cold scone dough. Expect some spread, but if the scones are over-spreading as they bake, remove from the oven and press back into its triangle shape (or whatever shape) using a rubber spatula.
- Chocolate: Use baking chocolate sold as 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle, such as Ghirardelli or Bakerโs brand. 1 heaping cup semi-sweet chocolate chips may be substituted for the chopped chocolate in the scones. Chocolate chips are a little tricky to melt into a pourable consistency, so I recommend sticking with the chocolate bar for the drizzle on top. The drizzle is optional.
Reader Comments and Reviews
These scones were FANTASTIC! Great recipe and easy to make. I will definitely be making these again.
I made these for my chocoholic daughterโs birthday breakfast. They were amazing! What a fabulous way to start a birthday!
Iโve been making these scones (different flavors) for a few weeks now with success. However, Iโm confused every time as to why I canโt get the dough to come together without adding extra cream. When I do frozen blueberries, itโs fine because they add a little moisture as I mix them in, but today I made the triple chocolate scones and that 1/2 cup cream just did NOT do it. I had loose flour and crumbs until I had added a few tablespoons of more cream. What really confused me was that the recipe said to use floured hands because the dough would be sticky. What?! Why isnโt that 1/2 cup cream ever enough to bring the dough together in any kind of shape?
Hi Allison! How did you measure the flour and cocoa powder? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much into your measuring cups โ or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
Allison, I have the same problem. I made this recipe, the chocolate chip scones, and the cinnamon chip scones today, and I had to add a little extra cream into all three to bring the doughs together. And I weighed my flour. *shrugs* They all tasted great, though.
Delicious. I have made a couple times following the recipe, but also made a mint chocolate variety. Cinnamon -> espresso powder, 1/2 chocolate chips -> peppermint bark pieces, vanilla -> 1 tsp mint extract and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Came out great
I am looking forward to trying this recipe and wanted to send some as part of a โchocolate loversโ birthday package to a friend in another part of the country. Have never mailed scones. Any helpful tips for best way to ensure freshness? Many thanks! Elaine
Hi! Iโm wondering if half and half. Am be used instead of heavy cream??
Hi Andrea, itโs really best to stick with heavy cream for these scones.
These are fantastic. My husband and I were swooning with chocolate love.
These were so delicious and pretty quick to make. As a chocoholic I canโt believe Iโm saying this, but I skipped the chocolate drizzle and they were still SO good!
My girls love anything chocolate for breakfast. They were pretty excited to see these! My youngest declared them delicious!
This recipe was very simple and so very tasty! It was straightforward and the result was a tender, decadent, and sweet scone! I used mini semi-sweet chocolate chips and cold brew for the glaze instead of water. Both worked out great! I skipped the chocolate drizzle to tone down the sweetness. Would definitely make these again!
I always love baking any of your scone recipes and this one was no different! It is like a brownie and a scone had a baby!! Delicious! I skipped the drizzle but did the glaze, adding espresso powder to it!! They are addicting!! Thank you, Sally, for all your fantastic recipes! I have learned so much from your detailed recipes.
Excellent scones! I tweaked your recipe a little. 1/2 sour cream 1/2 whip cream. Added a 2 tsp fresh ground espresso and I make an espresso icing! I make them for a small cafe I work in. Just made 24 yesterday. This one gets special orders as I have a few customers that only want these scones! Thank you for all your great recipes and inspiration.
This is a extremely delicious recipe for sconesโฆ!
These were pretty easy, although I definitely had to add a bit more cream. I thought they were only okay the first day, but they were a huge hit with my friends and I found they were better the next day, so I think it was more of a personal preference than recipe quality issue. I drizzled them with salted caramel and that made a huge, positive difference!
Hi Sally, Amazing stuff! Question: could I substitute coconut oil instead of butter for this and your other scones? If so, should it be chilled like the butter? Thanks!
Hi Renee! Itโs really best to stick with butter for our scones recipe. Coconut oil *may* work, but the results would taste strongly of coconut oil and would likely be greasy as well. You may be able to find a recipe specifically formulated for coconut oil.
So good! I used a heaping cup of semi sweet chocolate chips. Everyone loved them! They are rich. I made them into 12 scones (pressed into 2 discs , and cut into 6 triangles each), and the slightly smaller size was perfect. I started checking them at 15 minutes, and they were done at 21.
Great flavor , texture and rose beautifully :)โฆ. but highly suggest you check the scones at 17 minutes. I know every oven runs differently and mine were underdone at 15 but overdone by 20.
Hi Sally
great to have your recipes as always. May I know whatโs the, metric weight for 6 ozs of chocolate ?
Here in my country, we uses only metric measurement โฆโฆ thanks
Hi Rebecca, 6oz is equal to about 170g. Hope you enjoy the scones!
Best scone I have ever had and not too difficult to make!
Chocolate , chocolate,more chocolate.Looks great.And delicious
I made these for my first scone ever and they came out awesome! They taste similar to a chocolate cake donut and look very cool.
Made for my husbandโs birthday. He said best scone he ever had. I used espresso chocolate chips and regular ships and chopped hazelnuts. Then I double-dipped in espresso glaze. Thanks Sally!
My family and I enjoyed these however we are a chocolate family. I modified a bit as I needed more than 8 but didnโt want to double receipe. Instead, I cut into small pieces and cooked a bit less. Best of all ot was simple to make