This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosures.
These Gluten-Free Scones are made with buttermilk and without xanthan gum but instead a delicious blend of alternative flours for depth of flavour. A perfect afternoon tea served with a quick strawberry jam set with chia seeds and thick clotted cream.
There is nothing more indulgent than going for a proper afternoon tea. The kind you have in a fancy hotel with a proper tea menu, huge fluffy white scones, delicate cucumber sandwiches and mile high slices of sponge cake. I haven’t been for ages. Luke and I wanted to go as my last treat before Beau was born but then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes so that plan was nixed. We should really put it back on the agenda now the newborn days are over. Celebrating the first few months of Beau’s life seems a pretty good reason to treat ourselves.
It’s the proper presentation of the scones which I find so alluring, perched atop the tier of sandwiches and patisserie, wrapped in clean white linen, waiting to be discovered. I always go for the scones first. If it’s a first class establishment then these scones will be warm, fresh from the oven and that is when they are at their absolute best. They must then be layered high with thick golden Cornish clotted cream and vibrant strawberry jam. Whether you slather your scone with the clotted cream or jam first will betray whether you are of the Cornish or Devonshire persuasion.
The presence of scones will always elevate an occasion. A pot of tea shared with my mum is suddenly made into a fanciful affair by the inclusion of scones. We might as well be partaking our cream team with the Duchess of Bedford at Woburn Abbey. The proper china must come out, including the teapot, and I feel an unexplained need to set the table properly with a tablecloth and decant the jam and clotted cream into bowls rather than dipping our spoon into jars and tubs.
Yet scones also feel rather homely. They are definitely a comfort to bake. You don’t need an expensive food mixer or a specific kind of cake tin. Just a cheap mixing bowl, a wooden spoon and a standard round cookie cutter. You can dive your hands in, rubbing the butter with the flour in your fingertips, feeling the texture of the dough in between your hands as you bring it all together. It’s so satisfying and they don’t take long at all from start to finish. Within 45 minutes you can go from a faint craving to taking your first bite out of your homemade scone without any fluster.
Gluten-Free Scones with Buttermilk
I have a few scone recipes on the blog but no traditional plain gluten-free scones, the kind I turn to frequently when a cream tea is required. This gluten-free scone recipe is made with buttermilk for a tender crumb and a slight tang.
Gluten-Free Flour
For the flour choice in these Gluten-Free Scones I have used a specific home blend of alternative flours. I try and vary my gluten-free baking recipes with ingredients that are easy to find like the plain gluten-free flour blend you can pick up at the supermarket and those that indulge my love of alternative flours. It’s not going to suit everyone that this scone recipe uses a mix of five different flours but flour is the main ingredient in a scone recipe and has nowhere to hide amongst the other ingredients. To achieve a very good gluten-free scone the flour choice needs to be right.
I am aware that I have a very particular obsession with alternative flours and it is not usual for a larder to be stocked with every single variation on the market. However a few choice alternative flours are so worth investing in even if you are not gluten-free. Sweet rice flour, oat flour and tapioca flour are my mainstays. To understand the use of every flour in this recipe I urge you to read through my guide to Gluten-Free Flours. The depth of flavour you achieve from specific combinations is surprising and you can aim for a greater control over texture, moistness and fluffiness than just using a plain ready-made gluten-free blend can provide.
Gluten-Free Scones without xanthan gum
This gluten-free scone recipe is also without xanthan gum, a regular presence in a lot of gluten-free baking. It’s often used as a thickening agent or stabiliser to help prevent crumbly and dry gluten-free goods. It’s not something I particularly publicise but I never bake with xanthan gum. I don’t find I can digest it very well so steer clear. Instead I achieve my texture in baking from the right blend of alternative flours. Again, hence the need for so many.
READ MORE >>> WHY I DON'T BAKE WITH XANTHAN GUM
Quick Strawberry Jam
Of course you can use a good strawberry jam bought from the farmers’ market to cut down on your labour but a quick fresh strawberry jam is easy enough and has less sugar. These July strawberries I have been buying recently have been so delicious, absolutely full of flavour. I use lemon juice to perk up the strawberry taste, a dash of caster sugar and chia seeds to create an instant luscious set.
Clotted Cream
Clotted cream is a fabulous ingredient, I could easily eat it with a spoon but the golden hued crust that you have to break through to get there is the real chef’s delight. Clotted cream is the only choice for a proper afternoon tea. I remember being served the most delicious homemade scones once in Brighton, utterly ruined by the airy canned whipped cream served with them. It’s the clotted cream that really achieves the high end cream team that we all hope for whilst enjoying our fresh homemade scones warm from the oven.
Shop the recipe
- Biscuit/Pastry Cutters
- Large Baking Sheet
- Gluten-Free Sweet Rice Flour
- Gluten-Free-Oat Flour
- Gluten-Free Millet Flour
- Gluten-Free Tapioca Flour
- Chia Seeds
If you like this recipe you may like...
I urge you to give these Gluten-Free Scones a try. If you do then please leave a comment below and give the recipe a rating which helps others find the recipe on Google. If you then go on to use this recipe as a launch pad for your own culinary creation then I’d also love it if you’d share it and tag me on Instagram. It is so lovely for me to see your versions and variations of my recipes.
Gluten-Free Scones with Quick Strawberry Jam and Clotted Cream
Ingredients
Gluten-Free Scones
- 175 g sweet rice flour
- 125 g oat flour
- 100 g millet flour
- 50 g potato starch
- 50 g tapioca flour
- 100 g cold unsalted butter sliced thinly
- 115 g caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs + 1 extra for glazing
- 200 ml buttermilk
Quick Strawberry Jam
- 500 g strawberries
- juice 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon chia seeds
- 250 g clotted cream
Instructions
Buttermilk Gluten-Free Scones
- Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan/gas mark 3/320°F.
- Whisk the flours together in a large mixing bowl then add the butter, rubbing together with your fingertips to create breadcrumbs.
- Add the sugar, baking powder and salt and mix well.
- Pour the milk into a jug and whisk in the eggs until just combined then pour into the centre of the scone mixture.
- At first stir the liquid ingredients in with a wooden spoon then tip out onto a clean work surface and using your hands bring the dough together, turning and folding, until it is no longer sticky. Use a bit of extra gluten-free flour on the work surface if it is starting to stick.
- Once you have brought the dough together into a ball, press it down into an even circle 1 inch thick.
- Cut out the scones using 7cm cutter.
- Place the scones onto a clean baking tray. Whisk the extra egg with a splash of milk and brush onto the surface of each scone, making sure not to let it drip down the sides, else your scones will not rise evenly.
- Bake the scones for 18 minutes. Let the scones rest on the baking tray for 5 minutes then remove and let cool on a wire rack.
Quick Strawberry Jam
- Hull the strawberries then place them in a medium sized saucepan with the lemon juice and caster sugar.
- Cook for 10 minutes until the strawberries have broken down, then remove from the heat and stir in the chia seeds.
- Chill until needed.
- Serve the scones split open with the clotted cream and strawberry jam
These were lovely. I did reduce the sugar to 50g to have more of a traditional American-style biscuit and it worked well. I love the mix of flours as well. I have frozen part of the dough and look forward to seeing how they turn out.
That's lovely to hear - I'm happy you liked the recipe!
Hello, these look so good! Wondering if I could freeze these unbaked? Would love to make a batch and freeze, to have them on hand when a scone is needed!
Yes you can. Freeze them without the egg wash. They can go straight from the freezer onto the baking tray and then brush with the egg wash before you place them into the oven. They will bake for a little longer than the unfrozen scone dough.