I have many fond memories from the years I was a student at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, including having met my husband there! Other fond memories revolve around food (of course), some of which were the great bakery items sold at the school, like the UBC tea scones (thus the name of this recipe!)!
Most scones I've had are dry, dense, and kind of MEH. You'd have to drink tea with them just to be able to swallow them! But not these ones! These UBC tea scones are soft, tender, and just plain GOOD. If you are a UBC student, past or present, you know what I'm talking about! And if you're not, you're going to have to make these to see what the big deal is!
UBC revealed the recipes to their most popular baked treats in a local newspaper several years ago, and to this day, whether on campus or in my kitchen, they are a huge favorite. Now I can share this great recipe with you!
Keep in mind that this is the original UBC recipe. It is not gluten-free. It is not sugar-free. It probably can’t be considered a “healthy” recipe. However, I won’t make any apologies for these tea scones because they are just THAT good.
That being said, if you ARE gluten-free, I've got you covered! Be sure to check out my Gluten-Free Butter Tea Scones recipe which is a perfect adaptation of this original UBC scone recipe! You would never guess that they're missing the gluten!
To make these scones, I use a good old fashioned pastry cutter. That’s the neat looking wired contraption pictured above. It’s hand powdered and does a great job cutting all that butter into the flour and sugar. If you don’t happen to have a pastry cutter, you can simply work the butter into the flour with your hands, or use a fork. This ain’t rocket science and doesn’t require anything fancy.
Just like you don’t need any fancy tools to make these awesome tea scones, you also don’t need any fancy ingredients. This recipe, at its most basic, is simply flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, salt, milk, and an egg. If and how you decide to flavor it is up to you, but there are many options such as blueberries, grated cheese, dried fruit, lemon zest, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, etc. You could even drizzle an icing sugar glaze or melted chocolate over the scones after they’re baked!
Because these are tea scones, the idea is that they are small enough to have with some tea in the afternoon. They are not meant to be big pieces. So I simple drop spoonfuls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. They grow and spread a bit when baking, turning into just the right size for nibbling.
You can imagine how tender this scone is, can’t you? It’s literally melt-in-your-mouth good and oh-so-satisfying with a hot cuppa tea in the afternoon!
Another great thing about these tea scones is they freeze well. You just need to warm them in the oven or microwave for 10-20 seconds and they are crazy good. So you can make a batch of them, freeze them, and have a scone whenever you’d like!
Did I mention that these tea scones also make wonderful gift bundles during the holidays? Wrapped up in a pretty cellophane bag with some ribbon or in parchment paper and string and you’ve got a treat your friends will love.
I'm really excited to share a fond memory from my university days and I hope you'll give these Tender Buttery UBC Tea Scones a try. I'm sure you'll love them.
~ Lisa.
Recipe
Tender Buttery UBC Tea Scones
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup sugar
- 5 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (165g) cold butter cut into small chunks
- 1 egg slightly beaten
- 1 cup milk
Filling Options:
- 1 cup dried cranberries, fresh or frozen blueberries, cheese, nuts, chocolate chips, etc.
Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat oven 450 deg f (230C).
- Sift together dry ingredients in large bowl.
- Add chunks of butter to flour mixture.
- Using a pastry blender, cut butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles coarse oatmeal.
- Pour milk into measuring cup and add the slightly beaten egg. Pour into butter-flour mixture and stir until well combined.
- Add 1 cup of desired filling to dough and stir.
- Scoop rounded spoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving enough space for the dough to spread.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.
- Cool on wired rack. Enjoy warm with butter and/or fruit preserves. Also fabulous eaten plain!
- Freezes well.
Notes
- These scones are perfectly good with no filling in them...just a dab of butter and some fruit preserves are all you need to flavor them!
- Other great filling options are grated cheese, fresh or frozen blueberries, dried cranberries or cherries, chocolate chips, chopped pistachios, or lemon or orange zest.
- Combinations of fillings work great, too, like lemon zest and blueberries, or dried cranberries and pistachios!
- For the tea scones shown here in this post, I made a full batch of the scone dough, divided it into three separate bowls, and added three different fillings to each. It was an easy way to get some flavor variety without making 3x the recipe!
- Check out my Gluten-Free Buttery Tea Scones for the gluten-free version of this delicious scone recipe!
Thanks for stopping by! If you make this dish or any of my other recipes, I would love it if you could take the time to comment and rate it below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Melyssa Cooper says
Hi Lisa,
I had just asked a family member for this recipe & while giving it to me she also mentioned that the recipe had gone a bit "viral". I was excited to see once I Googled "UBC Scone Recipe" that the posts started coming up. This was my Nanny's personal recipe that she brought to UBC with her when she started working in the kitchen in the 50's & 60's. I'm so glad that so many have enjoyed it and I can't wait to make them for my family.
Hi Melyssa! I'm so honoured you've left a comment...how amazing that this was your Nanny's personal recipe! I'm sure she had no idea that the scones would be become as popular and beloved as they are! I hope they are like you remember. Thank you for leaving a message!
DebS says
These look amazing and will definitely try them! I went to UBC too. Any chance you can adapt the UBC Cinnamon Buns?
Hey Deb! Thanks for your comment, it's always nice to "meet" fellow UBC Alumni! 🙂 I hope you like the scone recipe. I am working on the UBC Cinnamon Bun recipe...first thing is to reduce the amount since I don't need to make a giant tray full like they do at school! Stay tuned! 🙂
Suzy says
Look full disclosure, I am a transplanted Brit and have have eaten more than my fair share of scones! I love love love these flakey, buttery morsels! They came together so quickly and are totally delicious. I’ll be making these regularly. Highly recommend that you try.
Thanks so much, Suzy! It's nice to know that the scones passed the test with a Brit!
Jane says
Love this recipe! I reduced the sugar to 1/3 cup when using cheese, still super good,
although my kids say they like the full 1/2 ..... but only when I tell them I made the change 😉
Thank you for sharing the recipe
That's great that you were able to reduce the sugar with no issues! I guess you could continue to use the reduced amount of sugar and just tell your kids that you've used the full amount! 😉 So glad you liked them, Jane!
Benita says
I remember these from UBC! Like you, I had cut out the recipe from the local Vancouver newspaper and kept it (for decades) and never made the recipe until I saw your post here. Your scones looked delectable, so I finally decided to try making scones. The original recipe called for the dough to be lightly kneaded on a floured surface and cut out with a floured cutter.
I tried making these today and my dough came out super sticky after the liquids were added. There was no way that it could be kneaded with making a huge mess, so I just made them as drop scones like you did. They came out delicious. My question; was your dough very, very sticky too?
My dough isn't very very sticky, but it is sticky. If I want to be able to knead and shape the dough to be cut, I would simple add more flour to the mixture until that was possible. Measuring the flour out by cups can vary from person to person, so the dough "stickiness" can also vary. Alternatively, if the dough was too dry, I would add extra milk to the mixture until it came together. All that being said, I prefer making the drop scones and not handling the dough as much so that the scones come out really tender. Thanks for your comments, Benita!
Expertans.Com says
These are super easy to make and super delicious! I had NEVER made scones before and prepared these in 15 minutes, and turned out so buttery good! These were delicious. A wonderful treat for a weeknight dinner. I ll be making them for weekend breakfast too.
Carola says
I have made these for years. I usually double the recipe, bake 1/2, and shape and wrap the other 1/2 in parchment paper, into a ziplock bag and into the freezer. I take the bag out the night before and put
In the fridge, bake them in the morning - fantastic fresh baked scones with no effort another day and the house smells wonderful.
That's a great tip about doubling the recipe, Carola, and freezing half to bake another day! Thanks for sharing!
Sandy says
I saw this post for scones today and knew I had to try it. I had some dried cranberries in my cupboard and a ripe orange on my tree for zest. The only thing I didn’t have was a pastry cutter so off I went to Target. Twenty minutes later the dough was made and scooped onto my pans. The hardest part of this whole recipe was waiting for the timer on my oven to tell me they were ready for the glaze. I just might have burned my mouth with the first bite. This recipe will be one that I will use over and over. My brain is working overtime with ideas for what to put in them.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Thanks for your comments, Sandy! I'm so glad you liked the recipe, and I'm excited to be able to share a recipe from my past!
Sasha says
I just made these for my family today. Everyone loved it. We don’t eat sugar so I replaced it with dates which I blended into the milk. Wonderful recipe. I will look into the other ones on this site!
That is great to know that the recipe worked with the dates! I never would have thought about that type of substitution for the sugar...that's brilliant! Thanks for sharing your tip, Sasha!