Looking for an alternative recipe to your trusty banana bread for using up those spotted, overripe bananas sitting on your countertop? These Banana Scones with Brown Sugar Crumb Topping are what you are looking for!
They come together easily, bake up quickly and make for the perfect addition to your breakfast or brunch menu. And, that brown sugar topping takes these already flavorful and moist banana scones from great to over the top indulgent.
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How To Make Moist and Buttery Scones
I have found that many a scone tend to look nice and inviting, but when it comes to taste, they under deliver in a big way. Most scones tend to be on the, dare I say it, drier side.
To help achieve a soft, buttery and flaky scone there are a couple of tricks I've used here (as well as in my Dulce de Leche Scones recipe).
The first trick to getting these scones just right is in the butter. I'm not talking about the amount of butter, but rather the way the butter is incorporated into the scone batter in this recipe.
To start, stick your butter in the freezer when you begin to prepare to make these banana scones. The ideal situation is to have your butter sit in the freezer for at least 30 minutes prior to using it in this recipe.
However, if you don't have that kind of time and you just need to bake these banana scones ASAP, even a few minutes in the freezer for your butter will suffice.
See the Tips section below for the best way to incorporate butter into the scones batter to produce the very best banana scones.
The next trick for obtaining a moist scone is the addition of sour cream or full-fat Greek yogurt.
This adds richness to the dough and helps maintain moisture during baking. The addition of sour cream or Greek yogurt also helps the scones stay soft and tender.
That Brown Sugar Topping
I made these banana scones several times before I was satisfied with the outcome. I tried sprinkling cinnamon sugar on top, I tried drizzling maple cinnamon glaze on the baked scones too. Each time they were good but not great.
Then it came to me - how about adding a brown sugar crumb topping? And guess what - adding a hefty sprinkling of brown sugar and butter on top of these banana scones was the ticket to achieving supreme scone deliciousness.
The brown sugar and butter melt into the scones while baking, creating a crisp and buttery bite to the scone. Utter banana scone perfection!
Tips for Making Banana Scones
- When preparing the scone dough, you’ll see two types of flour are called for, all-purpose and cake. Cake flour helps to achieve a tender texture in these scones. If you don’t have it, feel free to substitute the cake flour for all-purpose or use one cup all-purpose flour, remove 2 tablespoons from the one cup and replace with 2 tablespoons cornstarch. Whisk together to aerate and create a light and fluffy flour to add to your dough
- Keeping your butter cold is very important when making scones. This helps ensure a proper crumbly and flaky texture to your scones. So I recommend sticking your butter in the freezer for at least 30 minutes prior to baking the scones. Then, grate the butter (it’s easy once it’s frozen) using a box grater and incorporate into the dry ingredients. This helps prevent the butter from melting as you’re making the dough and prevents the scones from spreading too much while baking. And, this trick helps produce an exterior that is evenly browned and crisp (learned this from Sally’s Baking Addiction!)
- Don’t overwork the dough. What I mean by this is don’t over mix the butter into the flour or knead the dough when you’ve dumped it out onto the counter. You want to handle the dough as little as possible to prevent the dough from becoming tough and dense
- Learn how to ripen bananas faster so you can bake delicious scones up anytime. Use this simple trick to take fresh bananas from unripe to perfectly sweet, ripe fruit in minutes using your oven.
Useful Kitchen Tools for Making Banana Scones
FOR ALL MY FAVORITE BAKING TOOLS INCLUDING THOSE USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE, CHECK OUT MY BAKING RESOURCES PAGE!
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If you're a breakfast and brunch lover like me, give these other easy recipes a try:
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cake flour
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter very cold or frozen
- 1 cup very ripe banana mashed (about 2 bananas)
- ¼ cup full-fat sour cream or full-fat Greek yogurt
- ½ cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure maple syrup
- heavy cream for brushing tops
Topping
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter room temperature
- ½ cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- pinch of kosher salt
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together both flours, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup cake flour, 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Grate the frozen butter using a box grater.5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- Add the grated butter 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 freezer as you mix the wet ingredients together.
- Whisk together in a small bowl the mashed banana, sour cream (or Greek yogurt), brown sugar, egg, and maple syrup.1 cup very ripe banana, ¼ cup full-fat sour cream, ½ cup dark brown sugar, 1 large egg, 2 teaspoons pure maple syrup
- Drizzle over the flour mixture, then mix together until everything appears moistened
- Dump dough onto a lightly floured counter top. Dip your hands in flour and work the dough into an 8-inch disc as best you can (does not have to be perfect). Dough may be sticky. If it’s too sticky, add a little more flour. Once in an 8-inch disc, cut into 8 evenly-sized wedges using a sharp knife or bench scraper.
- Place scones on a parchment-lined baking sheet, 2-3 inches apart and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 400ºF.
- While dough is chilling, prepare crumb topping. In a large mixing bowl, mix all ingredients with your hands, squeezing together to form large crumbs or clumps. Set aside4 tablespoons unsalted butter, ½ cup dark brown sugar, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, pinch of kosher salt
- Remove scones from the refrigerator and brush tops with heavy cream then sprinkle with crumb topping. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool on traysheavy cream for brushing tops
Notes
- Store baked scones at room temperature for 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
- Scones may be frozen for up to 3 months. To freeze, place scones 2-3 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet in the freezer until frozen then place frozen scones in a ziptop bag. Thaw at room temperature and warm in the microwave on 50% for 1-1 ½ minutes.
Nutrition
Comments
Tasia ~ two sugar bugs
I'm loving how crunchy that brown sugar topping looks on these banana scones!! I actually bought double bananas this week in hopes of being able to bake with them.;-). Can't wait to give this one a try Kim!
Kim
The topping is everything! Can't wait for you to make these!
Mica
Can you use all purpose flour for this recipe?
Mica
Sorry, to clarify on my comment before, can you use all purpose flour for all of the recipe instead of half AP and half cake?
Kim
Yes absolutely! I also provide a substitution for cake flour in the blog post, if you have cornstarch. But if not, use all all-purpose flour and the end result will still work out just fine.
Jennifer
I've made this recipe three times now and each time they've tasted fantastic but the dough has been so incredibly sticky it's almost impossible to work with. I use a kitchen scale and measure everything exactly so I know my measurements are correct. This last time I added almost a full extra cup of flour (I used a mixture of both types) and it was still so sticky I couldn't even cut individual scones so I ended up baking the whole thing as one giant disc and cutting it like a scone pizza after it cooled. Like I said they always taste phenomenal I just don't know what could be going wrong with the dough. Either way I'll keep working with it because they're so yummy. On the last batch I added a maple cinnamon glaze on top which was also great.
Kim
Hi Jennifer, the scone dough is definitely on the sticky side! It could be the humidity in the kitchen too that's causing them to be a bit more sticky than usual. I like your idea of baking them in one giant disc and cutting them afterwards. I usually keep a little pile of flour on my bench and dip the dough or my hands (lightly) into it every once in awhile while working with this dough to keep it from sticking. I hope it works out better for you! I'm really glad to hear you like them!!!