Carrot Cake Scones

These carrot cake scones are full of grated fresh carrot, spices, and chopped pecans. Plus all your usual scone favorites like butter and cream. The first batch I made I put in the usual amount of sugar I put in scones but they didn’t seem quite sweet enough. Normally I like my vanilla cream scones to not be overly sweet as they are great with jam or curd which adds a lot of sweetness. However, I wanted these to be just sweet enough without the glaze. So, if you aren’t a fan of cream cheese, the glaze could totally be skipped. I do love the creamy sweetness and tang it adds though.

Carrot Cake Scones Key Ingredients

• Carrots – You can’t make carrot cake (or carrot cake scones) without some carrots. I used whole carrots, that I peeled and grated with a fine grater. I wouldn’t buy the pre chopped or shredded ones from the store as they have a habit of being dry.
• Spice mix – I used a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove which gave a nice warm spice flavor.
• Chopped pecans – I loved the bit of texture these added, however if you are not a nut person you could easily omit them.

If you’ve never made scones before, I always recommend referring back to my Vanilla Cream Scones recipe as there are a lot of tips for baking scones there. I promise, it’s not hard!

Carrot Cake Scones

Rate this recipe!

Print Pin Rate

Prep: 20 minutes minutes

Bake: 38 minutes minutes

Servings: 8 Scones

Ingredients

• 270 g AP Flour ~2¼ cups
• ½ tsp Salt
• ½ tsp Baking soda
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 3 tbsp Dark brown sugar
• 2 tbsp Granulated sugar
• 2 tsp Cinnamon
• ½ tsp Nutmeg
• ¼ tsp Cloves
• ½ cup Unsalted butter cold/frozen
• 1 cup Shredded carrot
• ½ cup Chopped pecans
• 1 large Egg cold
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• ½ cup Heavy cream cold

Cream Cheese Glaze

• 4 oz Cream cheese room temp
• 1 cup Powdered sugar
• 4 tbsp Cream or milk

Instructions

• Place your butter in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes before beginning recipe.
• Prep a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment or silicone baking mat
• Add together your dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves and mix together.
• Take butter from freezer and grate into flour mixture. Half way through, take a fork and fluff the butter into the flour. Finish grating the butter and repeat.
• Mix the carrots into the flour and butter mix, making sure to break up any clumps of carrots.
• Stir in chopped pecans.
• Make a well in the center of the bowl and pour in beaten egg and vanilla, then heavy cream.
• Slowly incorporate the flour into the liquid until most of the mixture has started to come together. Do not overwork the dough! It's okay if there is a little dry bits on the bottom of the bowl.
• Dump the contents onto your counter and fold it over on itself 2-3 times, adding in the dry bits as you do. Pat out into a circle or square that's about 1-1½ inches thick.
• Using a knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into 8 pieces. Cut straight down rather than a sawing motion.
• Transfer the scones to the baking sheet, and place the baking sheet in the freezer. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Leave the scones in the freezer while the oven preheats.
• When the oven is ready and the scones have been in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes, remove the scones from the freezer and brush the tops with heavy cream.
• Place the scones in the center rack of your oven and immediately reduce temperature to 375°F.
• Bake for about 25-30 minutes until scones are golden brown.
• While scones are baking, mix together cream cheese, powdered sugar and cream or milk to create glaze. For the consistency shown in the photos on here, I used about 4-5 tbsp of cream. For a thinner consistency, use milk and additional liquid until you reach the desired texture.
• Let scones cool for about 10 minutes and then drizzle glaze over them. Enjoy while warm.