We love scones and these carrot cake scones are so good! Full of goodies like finely grated carrots, raisins, and toasted pecans, and spiced with cinnamon and cardamom, they are a hearty and delicious breakfast snack. If you want to go all in, top them with cream cheese icing and you have an authentic “carrot cake” breakfast! If you prefer to stay a little more on the healthy side, then you might want to skip the icing. Or, maybe not. It’s so good! 🥕
For these scones, we used The Best Currant Scone recipe and added all of the carrot cake ingredients, which made the dough just a little bit softer due to the moisture in the raisins and carrots. Be sure to squeeze the excess water from the reconstituted raisins before adding them to the dough. If they are too wet, you may need to add a little bit of extra flour, but add just two tablespoons at a time, until the dough is no longer too sticky to roll out. You may not need it at all, if you really squeeze the water from the raisins after soaking them in boiling water for 15-20 minutes.
The reason for soaking the raisins is to keep them from drying out in the baking process. We usually soak our raisins before adding them to any baked goods. They stay plump and juicy this way!
Carrot Cake Scones
Ingredients
Scones:
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 tbsp. light brown sugar
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. cream of tartar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. cardamom
- 1/4 tsp. all-spice *optional
- 4 oz. butter, chilled and cut into small 1/2-inch pieces (8 tbsp. or 1 stick, or 1/2 cup)
- 1 cup currants rehydrated – see directions below
- 3/4 cup milk or half and half – your choice
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 cup toasted pecans (coarsely choppes)
- 1 cup finely grated carrots
- 1 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup toasted pecans pieces (for garnish on top of the icing)
Vanilla Icing
- 2 oz. cream cheese (softened to room temp)
- 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp. milk
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425⁰. Prepare a baking sheet with cooking spray or parchment paper.
- To rehydrate the raisins, place them in a small bowl. Pour about 1 cup of boiling water over them and allow this to sit for about 15-20 minutes. Strain or squeeze excess water out of the raisins before adding them to the dough. You can use a strainer for this or cheese cloth.
- Sift flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, (allspice if using), and cream of tartar into a bowl. Stir in brown sugar. Using a pastry cutter or cold fingertips, cut the butter pieces into the dries until the pieces of butter are like small peas. Stir in the raisins, carrots and pecans. Mix well.
- Add milk all at once and mix just until integrated. Turn dough onto floured cloth or board and gather into a ball. You may need to absorb a little of the extra flour for this step, but be careful to not over handle your dough. Use a very light touch. Remember, as our British au pair once told me, “The keys to good scones are cold hands and a warm heart!” 💕
- Roll or flatten the dough ball out to about 1 ¼ inch in thickness. Cut dough into 8 triangles for large scones, or 12 triangles for smaller scones. Or, you can also use a biscuit cutter dipped in flour if you prefer round scones.
- Place scones on prepared baking sheet and refrigerate for approximately 10-15 minutes, or longer. Remove from oven and bake for approximately 12-14 minutes, or until the tops begin to turn golden-brown. Remove from oven and cool completely before icing.
Make the Icing
- While the scones are baking, it’s time to make the icing. Simply blend the sifted powered sugar with the softened cream cheese. Whisk in the vanilla and enough milk to get to a thick icing consistency. If accidentally add to much milk, just add a little more sugar, and if it’s too thick, then add more milk, a tiny bit at a time!
- Spread the icing over the cooled scones with a spoon or offset spatula and then top with extra toasted pecan pieces. If you want to serve the scones warm, store them without the icing, and once reheated, spread the icing over them just before serving. These scones store very well in the refrigerator even once iced, but if you want to freeze them, we suggest icing them when you’re ready to serve them.
A union of carrot cake and scones??? Yes please! We couldn’t wait to give this recipe a try, and these bad boys did not disappoint. We could hardly wait for them to cool after coming out of the oven before digging in. Love that they’re low on sugar (we skipped the icing) as we intended to freeze the majority of the batch. The raisins provided more than enough sweetness to satisfy. In all honesty, not even half the recipe actually made it to the freezer – they were too tasty!
Thank you, Zoe! We are so happy that you tried these scones and loved them! We’re with you … the raisins (and carrots) make them taste sweet without a lot of sugar! We hope they become a regular in your breakfast rotation! Good luck on the race!