No waiting on raspberry season for these. Sourdough raspberry white chocolate scones are built around frozen fruit from the start, not as a fallback when fresh isn't in season, but because frozen raspberries genuinely make a better scone. They're the newest addition to the wedge-cut scone method I use for my Sourdough Cherry Scones With White Chocolate Chips, adapted here for berries that bleeds the second it thaws. Get the discard out of the fridge and let's go.
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Recipe Highlights
TASTE: Tart raspberry streaks, sweet melty white chocolate, buttery flaky crumb
NO GLAZE NEEDED: Sugar-sprinkled tops give all the crunch without a drizzle to fuss over
FREEZER-FRIENDLY: Shape and freeze unbaked, then bake straight from frozen whenever you want one
SEB'S RATING: Picks all the ones with the most raspberries, every time
Why Frozen Raspberries Actually Work Better Here
Every raspberry scone recipe I've seen treats fresh fruit as the gold standard and frozen as a compromise. It's the wrong way round, in my opinion.
Cold fruit keeps the butter cold, and cold butter is what gives you flaky scones rather than dense, cakey ones. Frozen raspberries also hold their shape while you fold them through the dough. Fresh raspberries collapse under a spatula almost instantly, turning your dough pink and soupy before it's even shaped. Frozen raspberries are also the better choice in cookies, like our Sourdough White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies.
If you have fresh raspberries, though, try our Raspberry & White Chocolate Sourdough Cupcakes!
Keep the raspberries in the freezer until the last possible moment, and you get streaks of colour running through the dough, not a uniform pink mess. That's the whole trick.
Ingredient Notes
Find the full ingredient quantities and instructions in the recipe card below, but a few things are worth flagging first.
- Raspberries, kept frozen. Don't let them sit out while you prep everything else. Handle them last, and handle them fast. Use no more than 100g of raspberries. That's less than the 150g of blueberries I use in my Lemon Blueberry Sourdough Scones. Raspberries hold more water and break apart more easily, so less genuinely is more here.
- Frozen butter, coarsely grated. Same method as the cherry scones and sourdough lemon poppy seed scones. Visible flecks of butter survive mixing and shaping instead of melting into the flour, which is what makes these flaky rather than short and crumbly.
- Sourdough discard, cold, 100% hydration. There's no long ferment happening here, so active starter works just as well if that's what you've got going. The discard's acidity is doing quiet work on tenderness and giving a faint tang, not any leavening.
Step-By-Step Method
1. Make the dry mix. Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder, then grate the frozen butter straight in and rub it through lightly with your fingertips. You want visible pieces of butter, not a smooth, sandy mixture.
2. Add the chocolate, hold the raspberries. Toss the white chocolate chips through the dry mix. Leave the raspberries in the freezer until step 4.
3. Bring the wet ingredients together. Whisk the sourdough discard, egg, vanilla and milk, then pour into the dry mix and combine gently, just until a shaggy dough starts to form.
4. Fold the raspberries in fast. Tip them in frozen and fold with as few strokes as you can manage. Streaks of pink through the dough are normal and expected. A fully wet, uniformly pink dough means you've overmixed or the fruit has started to thaw.
5. Shape and cut. Press the dough into a rough 20cm circle, then cut into eight wedges, wiping your knife between cuts so you're not dragging berries through clean dough.
6. Bake. Brush with milk or cream, sprinkle with sugar, and bake at 200°C (400°F) for 16-18 minutes. Go by colour, not just the timer. Frozen fruit adds extra moisture, so these want a touch longer in the oven than a fresh-fruit scone. Cool on a wire rack.
If You Want a Glaze or a Drizzle
Vanilla bean glaze. Whisk 80g icing sugar with 1-2 tablespoons whole milk or double cream and a scraping of vanilla bean paste until you get a thick, pourable consistency. Drizzle over cooled scones and let it set for 10 minutes before serving. This keeps things simple and lets the raspberry and white chocolate stay the main event.
White chocolate glaze. Melt 50g white chocolate with 1 tablespoon double cream in short bursts in the microwave, stirring between each, until smooth and glossy. Drizzle while still warm and slightly loose, it firms up as it cools. This one doubles down on the white chocolate rather than introducing a new flavour, so it reads as more deliberate than decorative.
Recipe Tips
🧊 Work fast once the raspberries are in. The whole point of frozen fruit is keeping the dough itself cold. The longer you handle it, the warmer and wetter it gets, and the less flaky the result.
🔪 A bench scraper earns its keep here. Cutting clean wedges without dragging berries across the surface matters more with raspberries than with sturdier fruit like cherries or blueberries.
👀 If the dough looks wet rather than streaky, you've overmixed. Next batch, fold with a cutting motion using a spatula rather than stirring.
🥶 Softening fruit is fixable. If the raspberries start weeping before you've got the scones in the oven, freeze the shaped, unbaked wedges for 10 minutes to firm everything back up.
Storage & Make-Ahead
Room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 days. For longer storage, freeze the baked scones individually wrapped, then warm through in the oven from frozen when you want one.
You can also freeze the shaped, unbaked wedges on a tray until solid, then bag them up and bake straight from frozen, adding 3-4 minutes to the bake time. This is genuinely the better make-ahead option, since it keeps the butter and raspberries solid right up until they hit the oven.
More Sourdough Scone Recipes
If you're building out a sourdough scone rotation, these are worth a look:
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Sourdough Raspberry and White Chocolate Scones
Equipment
Ingredients
- 250 g (2 cups) plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 100 g (½ cup) granulated sugar, plus extra for topping
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 100 g (3.5 oz) unsalted butter, frozen
- 100 g (½ cup) white chocolate chips
- 100 g (¾ cup) frozen raspberries, kept frozen
- 100 g (~½ cup) sourdough discard, 100% hydration, cold
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste optional
- 2-3 tablespoons whole milk or double cream plus extra for brushing
Instructions
- About 1 hour before you begin, weigh, wrap and freeze butter.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.
- Coarsely grate the frozen butter into the dry ingredients and rub in lightly with your fingertips, you want to keep some larger pieces of butter visible, don't work it in until smooth.
- Add the white chocolate chips and toss to combine. Leave the raspberries out for now.
- In a separate bowl or jug, whisk together the sourdough discard, egg, vanilla bean paste and milk.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix gently with a spatula or your hands, just until it starts to come together into a shaggy dough.
- Tip the frozen raspberries in and fold them through with as few strokes as possible. Work quickly here, you're aiming to distribute the berries, not break them up. Streaks of pink through the dough are fine and expected, mushy dough is not.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently bring it together into a mound with your hands. If it feels very dry, add a splash more milk, but don't overwork it trying to make it smooth.
- Press the dough out into a rough 20 cm (8-inch) circle.
- Cut into eight wedges using a sharp knife or dough scraper, wiping the blade between cuts so you get a clean edge rather than dragging raspberries through the dough.
- Transfer the wedges to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them apart.
- Brush the tops with milk or cream and sprinkle with a little extra sugar, demerara if you have it for crunch.
- Bake for 16-18 minutes. Frozen fruit adds extra moisture, so these need a minute or two longer than my other scones, look for good golden colour around the edges rather than going by time alone.
- Cool on the tray for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe FAQs
Some raspberries breaking as you fold them in is normal and won't affect the finished scones. It's only a problem if the whole dough turns uniformly pink and sticky rather than streaky, which means the fruit has thawed and burst before baking. Handle the raspberries frozen and mix as little as possible once they're in the dough.
Not for this method. Fresh raspberries are too delicate to fold through scone dough without collapsing, and you'll end up with a wet, pink mess instead of clean streaks of fruit. If fresh is all you have, freeze them for at least an hour before using.
These scones will spread a little as the raspberries thaw in the dough. It's just part of it. Excessive spreading, however, comes down to warm butter or overworked dough. If the butter softened while you were mixing, or you handled the dough too much after cutting the wedges, there isn't enough structure left to hold the shape in the oven. Work quickly, and if your kitchen is warm, chill the shaped wedges for 10 minutes before baking.
Dark chocolate chips cut the sweetness nicely against the tart raspberries and are the swap I'd reach for first. Milk chocolate chips work too if you want something sweeter still.
Diana says
These went over amazing and our church's Lady's tea. The flavor combo is great and they're moist yet flaky.
Ieva Greber says
Thanks, Diana — sounds like they were a hit at the ladies' tea! Moist yet flaky with that raspberry-white chocolate combo is exactly the balance I was after. Lovely to hear they went down so well.
Amy Dong says
I tried this recipe for breakfast, and everyone loved them. The sourdough added a subtle tang that balanced the sweetness beautifully!
Ieva Greber says
Thanks, Amy — that subtle tang cutting through the sweetness is exactly the balance sourdough brings to a bake like this. Glad it was a breakfast winner all round!
Zoey says
I've never made scones before, but these were so easy to make and turned out great.
Ieva Greber says
Thanks, Zoey — brilliant first scone experience! Glad they turned out great, hopefully this is the start of a proper scone habit.