Sourdough Blueberry Protein Drop Scones

If you’ve ever avoided making scones because you didn’t want to mess with cold butter or flour-covered counters, these are for you. By swapping heavy cream for a high-protein yogurt base and adding a splash of sourdough discard, I’ve turned a classic treat into a 10g protein powerhouse. These are “drop scones,” which means they are unceremonious, rustic, and take only 10 minutes of active work. While they do need a little “nap” in the fridge to hydrate the protein and flour, the result is a cloud-like interior that proves protein baking doesn’t have to be rubbery or dry.

 

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• Why You’ll Love This
• The Ingredients
• Substitutions
• Equipment Used
• How to Make this
• How To Store
• FAQ
• Other Recipes You Might Enjoy

Why You’ll Love This 

TL;DR

• 10g Protein Per Scone: More than double the protein of a traditional scone without the dry, chalky texture.
• Zero Effort Prep: No cutting butter or rolling dough; just a quick stir and a “drop” onto the pan.
• Sourdough Magic: A perfect way to use discard for extra tenderness and a complex, tangy flavor.
• Meal-Prep Friendly: Mix them the night before, let them hydrate in the fridge, and bake them fresh in the morning.
• Naturally Moist: The combination of yogurt and sourdough keeps these “cloud-like” for days.

Blueberry Cream Scones, Improved

I’ve been playing around with the lovely Blueberry Cream Scones recipe from the NYT for a while now and absolutely loved them from the very first bite. I just felt they needed a bit of my own twist to be even better, and this recipe is just that: A sourdough protein drop scone version of these super easy scones, adding a few benefits to the already fabulous recipe.

10 Minutes Hands-on Time, Ready in 1h

Like the original, these blueberry scones come together within 10 minutes and a bit of stirring in a bowl. There is no cutting butter into flour, trying to keep it cold, no kneading, shaping and handling. Just blend, stir, drop unceremoniously onto a sheet pan with a fork. Into the fridge for 30 minutes or overnight, which makes them a fabulous option for meal prepping your protein breakfast, then bake and enjoy warm and steaming.

10g Protein per Scone

Ah yes, protein. 10g per scone is nothing to scoff at. This is more than double of the original, which comes with just 4g. But fear not, they have absolutely none of the protein dryness you might be worried about, nor do they feel rubbery, which is another common complaint in protein recipes. The combination of whey concentrate, Greek yogurt (or cottage cheese. Both work.) combined with tenderizing sourdough make them into a light and delicious treat you can serve to friends and family, and they won’t even know they are eating something that is actually good for them.

Uses Up Sourdough Discard

Because scones are so tender, they don’t necessarily need the gluten development active sourdough and time would provide. So you get to use up your discard and give them a fluffiness boost by using baking powder. Could you leave that out and use just active sourdough instead, letting them rise overnight? Of course you could. It all depends on your schedule and preference.
But the gently tangy and malty flavor it imparts is just utterly moreish!

Super Light, Fluffy and Moist

Now, I know I mentioned their texture above, but I have to emphasize it again: These heaps of breakfast joy taste like a cloud filled with blueberry-vanilla flavor, encased in a slightly crunchy sugar crust. They are light, with juicy bursts of fruit, rise in the oven to quite the impressive size and are anything but your “typical” dry and dense scone. So if you hear “scone” and think “Well, those can only be saved by a whole bunch of clotted cream and jam”, think again. You’ll want to eat these just as they are and I promise you won’t miss the butter a bit.

Ingredient Notes

Dry Sourdough Scone Ingredients

• Flour – Because we want the scones to be super tender, all-purpose flour is best here.
• Whey Protein – I used the vanilla version of the whey concentrate from MyProtein.
• This is neither affiliated nor sponsored. Just the powder I found to taste best after trying a fair few. If you never found one you actually enjoy, give this one a try.
• Sugar – While the protein powder has sweetener, you still need sugar for the structure. Though if you wanted you could reduce it by half.
• Kosher Salt – I use Diamond Crystal in all my cooking and baking. It has a very fine structure, so it has less saltiness in volume than, say sea salt (but the same by weight). So if you use sea salt, use half the amount in volume than given in the recipe.
• Baking Powder – Gives the scones their characteristic rise and means you can bake them 30min after mixing and use sourdough discard instead of active starter.

Wet Scone Ingredients

• Sourdough Discard – You can use either active starter or a few days old discard for this recipe. I tried both version and it works just fine. 
• Greek Yogurt – I tried these (formerly cream) scones with cottage cheese, 0% fat Greek yogurt and full fat Greek yogurt. All versions came out lovely! So use what you have at home. Cottage cheese with lead to an ever so slightly firmer crust and Greek yogurt gives you an even fluffier result, but the differences are minimal.
• Milk – I used oat milk as that’s what I have at home. Any type of milk will work here.
• Butter – Contrary to classic scones, which have butter as main ingredient and often use cold butter, leading to their classic crumbly texture, the butter here is melted and just acts as a tenderizer. And it helps the sourdough and yogurt to counter any potential protein dryness and prevents too much gluten development by coating the flour with fat.
• Egg – This is an addition to make up for the lack of fat, which, in the original NYT recipe came from the cream. The egg adds lecithin, even more protein and provides a little bit of fat without adding the amount of calories cream would, balancing the texture nicely.

Toppings (Optional)

To top the scones just before baking, I most use more of the basic ingredients but like adding demerara sugar, as it has larger crystals that caramelise into this pretty sparkly topping.

Add Ins

Blueberries – I just adore the juicy pops and colour blueberries add to these sourdough scones. Of course you can get entirely creative with your add ins.

substitutions

Dry Drop Scone Ingredients

• Flour – Bread flour will work too. And if you like a bit more fiber, you could replace about 1/3 of the flour with fine whole wheat flour. Your scones might not come out as cloudy-light, but have a lovely nutty taste.
• To make these gluten-free, a shop-bought GF flour blend should work. Use about 10g-20g less of it. Check if your blend contains xanthan gum. If not, add ½ tsp to the sugar and mix well before adding it to the wet ingredients.
• Protein Powder – Casein powder works well, but needs about 1-2 tbsp more milk. So does upcycled Barley protein, which needs 1-2 tbsp less milk.
• I have not tried to bake with any pea based vegan protein powders, as I deeply dislike the flavor and texture of them to begin with, so I’d rather not have them in my baked goods. If you give it a try, please tell me what you think!
• Sugar – Xylitol will work nicely as replacement for diabetics or if you are watching your sugar intake.
• Baking Powder – Due to the acidity of yogurt and sourdough you can swap in baking soda 1:1.

Wet Scone Ingredients

• Sourdough Discard – If you’d like to skip any chemical leavening agents, you can use active starter and leave them to rise longer. I would leave them overnight covered in the fridge and possibly about 2h outside, if they haven’t risen in the morning. Most of the rise will happen in the oven though.
• If you’d like to make them without sourdough entirely, substitute with ½ cup/60g more flour plus 3 tbsp/45ml more milk. They might not be as soft, since the sourdough acts as tenderizer, but still delicious.
• Greek Yogurt – Vegan Greek-style yogurt will work nicely here. So will blended cottage cheese. Frankly any fat percentage worked fine in my tests.
• Butter – Vegan butter will work great here, as it can be browned too. 
• Eggs – If you’d like to replace the egg add 1 tbsp additional butter and 2 tbsp/30ml plant milk top get a very similar result.
• Blueberries – While I used fresh, you can use frozen ones. But give them a quick rinse and dry pat, as they often have ice crystals which would water down the batter.

Variations

With scones being incredibly versatile, feel free to experiment wildly with the basic batter.

Here are a few ideas for Add ins:

• Add some lemon zest for lemon-blueberry scones. While you are at it, add 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds for incredible crunch. Their flavor is absolutely made for this combo.
• Raisins, cranberries, chopped apricots or any other dried fruits will be lovely.
•  I could imagine a version with chopped dates and a bit of honey instead of sugar. Maybe sprinkle with sesame?
• Chocolate chips are always an option of course.
• White chocolate and freeze dried raspberries would be stunning. I’d be careful with fresh raspberries though, as they are very juicy and fragile, releasing the juice into the scones much earlier than blueberries.
• If you’d like a savory version, switch to unflavored protein powder, leave out the sugar and fold in some grated cheese. Some fried bacon bits too maybe? Or rather a handful of crispy fried onions?

Top Tips for Success

• Measuring Flour – I have given gram measurements in addition to the cups here, for those of you that have kitchen scales. This is the best method to measure flour (and sourdough) in particular.
• If you use cups, do not drag the cup through the flour to fill it, as this can compact it and give you a lot more than the recipe requires, changing the texture.
• Instead, use a spoon to fill the cup gently, then level the flour with the back of a knife. That way you get closest to the 120g per cup that is assumed in recipes.
• Don’t overmix – Scones are supposed to be tender, which is achieved by handling them very little. So don’t be tempted to knead the dough.
• Don’t add more flour – The dough will look very wet. This is working as intended. You want a “heavily dropping off the fork” texture which feels closer to sponge than your typical scone dough, which is much dryer and can be shaped.
• They bake in a fairly hot oven – 425°F/220°C may look like it would be too hot at first glance, but that’s what you want to get that super fluffy rise and golden brown colour at the very high hydration.
• Give them the fridge rest – Putting them into the fridge for 30 minutes may feel like too much waiting when you could just bake them right away. I know. But that little bit of time allows the flour to fully hydrate, the sourdough and vanilla flavor to properly develop and the cold batter then gets a proper oven rise when it hits the heat. Use the time to pre-heat your oven.

Equipment Used

• Blender – While I use my Nutribullet to get the yogurt- protein mix really smooth, you could certainly just give it a vigorous whisk, to get any potential protein lumps out. I’m just too lazy for that and use the blender every day anyway.
• Large bowl – For the remaining dough mixing steps
• Fork – To mix the dough. Or a dough whisk if you want to get all fancy.
• Sheet Pan – To bake the scones. Ideally two, but you can get away with one and just bake two batches.

Nutribullet

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sheet pan

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How to Make this

I can’t count how many times I’ve said this, but we are at the easy part again.
With all the talk about the ingredients, I sometimes feel recipes can look a little intimidating. Then you look at the instructions, which literally take 10 minutes of active work and think “Yeah ok, I can do this even on the busiest day.”

Blend (or whisk) Your Wet Ingredients and Protein

• As so often in my recipes, I prefer to use a blender for the wet ingredients and protein, as it makes sure there are absolutely no protein powder lumps in sight. Not that you would notice them later (so feel free to just whisk), but I’m weird like that.
• Add your yogurt, whey concentrate, milk, melted and cooled butter, the egg and sugar to your blender (or large bowl) and blend (or whisk) until very smooth.

• After blending add your sourdough discard and just stir in briefly.

Add Your Wet Ingredients to the Dry

• In a large bowl add the flour, baking powder, blueberries and salt and give it brief stir with your fork, so the baking powder is mixed in and the blueberries are covered with flour.

• Make a little well, pour in your wet protein mix and stir everything together until you have a shaggy batter. It will look pretty wet and drop heavily from your fork.

Drop Your Scones On a Baking Sheet

• Line two sheet pans with baking parchment (or line one and bake in batches).

• Using your fork, simply drop about 10 heaps of batter on your parchment covered pans. No precision or shaping needed. Just keep them about 2 inches from each other (max. 6 per pan). The craggier they look, the more nice and crispy bits you have later. Plus they magically get rounder while baking. It’s quite astonishing.

The Hard Part

• Here comes the hard part. I know you want to bake them right now! But you need to give them at least 30 minutes in the fridge. Trust me, it’s for the best. The flour will hydrate, the flavors get to know each other, baking powder and sourdough work their magic, and your scones will be better for it.
• When I just pop them in there for 30 minutes I usually leave them uncovered. But if you want to leave them overnight to get your breakfast meal prep out of the way, put the whole sheet pan into a large bag that you inflate by blowing into it lightly, then tie or clip it close, to keep the scones lovely and moist.

Bake Your Sourdough Blueberry Protein Drop Scones

• Pre-heat your oven to 425°F/220°C.

• Brush each scone with a little more milk (or cream if you like), sprinkle with some sugar for extra crunch and sparkles. I used demerara sugar for this, since it has bigger crystals. But granulated works fine. Pop some extra blueberries on top of each scone, for those little blueberry “volcanoes”, with the juice running all over the top when they burst.
• Bake up to 6 scones on one sheet pan, as they will expand quite a bit, for 18-20 minutes or until lightly golden brown or 200°F/93°C at the center.

How to Serve

Allow your sourdough discard protein scones to cool for about 5-10 minutes, then enjoy warm as they are. Of course you could slather them with butter and maybe some jam but try a bite first. You might have inhaled the whole thing as is before thinking twice.

How To Store

• These Protein Sourdough Blueberry Scones will keep in an airtight box on the counter for about 3 days, up to 5 days in the fridge and freeze really well for about 3 months.
• If you want to re-heat them, 20-30 seconds in the microwave will do. Though, frankly, I always prefer using the air fryer! About 5 minutes at 350°F/175°C will give you scones even better than fresh, with crisp edges and a soft, fluffy inside.
• After freezing you can either defrost them on the counter or, as I do, give them about 6-9 minutes in the air fryer* at 350°F/175°C or 15 minutes at the same temperature in the oven. Personally I adore reheating them in the air fryer, as the sugar topping gets really crunchy!

FAQ

Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Have you tried this? Did you enjoy it?
What other recipes would you like to see?

And if you enjoyed this recipe, please consider rating, sharing, or leaving a comment – your feedback truly helps my blog grow!

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