Sourdough Chocolate Chip Scones

It has been a while since I posted a sourdough discard recipe! It took many attempts for me to perfect my sourdough blueberry muffins, and these sourdough chocolate chip scones proved to be no exception. I’ve been baking sourdough for years and I have baked so many delicious treats using active sourdough starter. Since I don’t want to waste anything, I also want to find recipes to use the sourdough discards. Whether that be muffins, scones, bread, cookies, pancakes, or anything else! Thankfully there are many recipes already online, but I also love creating my own. These sourdough scones aren’t dry like some scones can be, and the taste of the sourdough discard is tangy, almost making them taste like they are made with buttermilk. That flavor is the perfect compliment to the sweet chocolate chips.

What is Sourdough Discard?

When you have a sourdough starter, it needs to be fed daily with an equal amount of starter, water, and flour. You can skip a day and it’ll be fine, but ideally a strong starter is fed daily. Unless you are using active starter daily for baking, you would be using quite a bit of water and flour to feed your starter to maintain that ratio. To make sure you are only feeding what you need, you take out, or “discard,” an amount of starter that you won’t be needing. You can throw this discard away or keep it in a jar in the refrigerator to use for sourdough discard recipes like this one. Even though sourdough starter and discard is just flour and water it is not something you can just add to a recipe. It is an active wild yeast! Even discard maintains those properties in a weakened state. These scones are a great way to use your sourdough discard!

How to Make Sourdough Scones

• First, it’s important to make sure your butter, sourdough discard, egg, and cream are all cold for best results. Sometimes I even use butter straight from the freezer to make sure it’s extra cold.
• In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Use a box grater to grate the cold butter and mix it into the dry ingredients. Place the bowl in the freezer while you prepare the other ingredients.
• In a liquid measuring cup, measure your sourdough discard and add in one egg, the heavy cream, and the vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk to combine, then pour into the dry ingredients.
• Mix the scones until just combined and then turn the bowl onto a floured surface. Use your hands to form the dough into a rectangle and use a box cutter to cut into triangles.
• Transfer the triangles to a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and freeze for 40-50 minutes. This step is very important! It allows all the cold ingredients to be as cold as possible to ensure the scones do not spread. We want tall and flakey scones!
• Leave the scones in the freezer until the oven has preheated, then brush the tops of the scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake until golden brown and enjoy! I love enjoying these warm from the pan, but they are also delicious for up to 48 hours kept in an airtight container.

These scones are perfect for breakfast, a snack, or maybe even your own little tea party at home! I love to enjoy mine with a cup of tea or coffee and ideally a good book for a nice relaxing weekend morning.