Carrot Cake Scones with cream cheese frosting

The carrot cake scones are a delicious, fluffy, and moist carrot cake scone recipe with a cream cheese filling that’s easy to make.

Every spring, right before Easter, the carrot cake recipes come out from the recipe card tins (do people even use those anymore?), Grandma gets a phone call asking for her famous spice cake recipe, and fingers start showing up with band-aids on them from one too many close calls with the grater.

This is a tasty & fun take on the traditional carrot cake perfect for a special breakfast or brunch. If you love scones don’t miss my fresh Strawberries and Cream Scones too!

Ingredients:

• Spices. Nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon are the spices I like to use. Add cloves if you like.
• Cream Cheese. You’ll need the cream cheese at room temperature for making the frosting.
• Carrots. Shredded carrots, of course!
• Buttermilk. You can use cold heavy cream as a sub, but buttermilk will give you the best flavor.
• Coconut. Just a bit of sweetened shredded coconut adds a wonderful texture and flavor to the traditional carrot cake flavor. You’ll love it!
• Butter. Make sure you are using very cold butter to get the most tender scone.

Methods to make Carrot Cake Scones:

• Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
• Cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until crumbly.
• Add the carrots and coconut.
• Pour in the buttermilk and stir.
• Knead and shape.
• Prior to baking, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar & coconut.
• Bake until golden brown.
• Top with prepared cream cheese frosting.

Tip: Don’t be tempted to overmix your scones. You want to have little bits of cold butter not yet mixed in…that’s the perfect texture! Those bits of butter will turn into pockets of air and give you that beautiful tender texture.

Make Ahead/Store:

Scones are best fresh and warm and don’t hold up well to being stored.
→ However, you can easily make the dough ahead of time and put it into the fridge ready to be popped into the oven right before you want the scones ready. In fact, this method will give you the BEST scones!

Carrot Cake Scones With Cream Cheese Frosting

| 8 scones

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients

 

1x2x3x

• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 2 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 6 tbsp. salted butter chilled and cut into small cubes
• 1 1/2 cups grated carrot
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1-2 tablespoons whole milk for basting
• turbinado sugar for sprinkling

For the cream cheese frosting:

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 oz. cream cheese room temperature
• 2 tbsp. salted butter softened
• 2 tbsp. whole milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup toasted shredded coconut for sprinkling
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans for sprinkling

Check out our Kitchen Reference Guide for help with unfamiliar terms.

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking pan with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
• In a large bowl or in a stand mixer, whisk together the all-purpose flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt until well combined.
• Beat in the cubed butter until the mixture looks crumbly. This is going to make the scones much lighter, creating tiny pockets of melted butter inside the dough that will keep the scones from becoming dense while baking.
• Add in the grated carrot and shredded coconut and toss until evenly combined.
• Gradually pour in the buttermilk and stir until the mixture starts to resemble dough.
• Turn it out onto a floured surface and gently knead until the dough comes together.
• Shape the dough into an 8-inch circle that is about a 1/4 inch thick. Any thicker than this and the dough won’t cook all the way on the inside before the outside starts getting dark or burned. and Place onto the prepared baking pan, Brush the milk onto the dough and slice into 8 wedges.
• Sprinkle with turbinado sugar leaving enough room between them to expand a little.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the tops are lightly browned, and transfer to a cooling rack.
• Start combining all the ingredients for the cream cheese frosting while the scones are baking. Using a hand or stand mixer, whisk until frosting is smooth. Once the scones have had time to cool, either spoon the frosting onto the scones or dip the tops inside the bowl of frosting. Top with toasted coconut and chopped pecans