If you've ever eaten baked goods in a restaurant or bakery, it's very unlikely that any of them were dairy-free. Even when you don't necessarily taste or see a creamy consistency, baked goods, especially scones, contain butter, milk, or cream—sometimes all three.

Dairy-free baked goods are hard to come by unless you make them yourself. I'm an avid baker with a dairy allergy, and my specialty is using dairy-free substitutions as seamlessly as possible. Most of the time, no one knows the difference. These dairy-free scones are the perfect breakfast treat, snack, and even dessert scone recipe that don't contain any lactose/regular dairy.

Dairy-Free Scones

  • Prep Time:15 mins
  • Cook Time:15 mins
  • Total Time:30 mins
  • Servings:8
  • Hard

    Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 5 tablespoons frozen Crisco
  • 1/2 tablespoon Lactaid milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup dried cherries or other dried fruit optional
chocolate, cookie, dough, sweet, cake
Allison Curley
  • Step 1

    Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease with cooking spray.

    sushi, rice
    Allison Curley
  • Step 2

    In a large bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Take a whisk and lightly mix all of the ingredients together.

    milk, sweet, cream, ice, dairy product, salt, flour
    Allison Curley
  • Step 3

    Take the frozen Crisco and chop it up into small cubes.

    cookie, chocolate, sweet, peanut butter
    Allison Curley
  • Step 4

    Instead of using a pastry cutter, put the dry ingredients and the cubes of Crisco in a bowl and use your hands to cut in the Crisco. Don't overtax this.

    flour, milk, dairy product, cream, cereal, dough, sweet
    Allison Curley
  • Step 5

    In a separate bowl, gently combine the egg, milk, and vanilla with a whisk (do not scramble the egg, just mix all together).

    egg, cream, dairy product, batter, yolk
    Allison Curley
  • Step 6

    Add the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl. Then, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry while it is on a low mixing speed, and stop when everything is combined. Add cherries at this point, if desired.

    ice cream, chocolate, cookie, ice
    Allison Curley
  • Step 7

    Place the scone dough on a floured surface and gently knead it. Then, cut the dough into about 1/2-inch thick slices with either a knife or cookie cutter.

    dough, cookie, cake
    Allison Curley
  • Step 8

    Place the scones onto the baking sheets and bake for 15 minutes, or until slightly golden brown. Top with glaze once they've cooled slightly.

    chocolate, cookie, goody, pastry, cake, muffin, sweet
    Allison Curley

Hopefully, your finished product looks something like this. From the picture below, you can see that replacement baking can change the appearance of some baked goods. The tops of the scones look like they have holes in them, but I can assure you that once you take a bite, they taste exactly the same, if not better than regular scones. 

chocolate, cookie, sweet, goody, oatmeal
Allison Curley

Another optional addition to these scones is a dairy-free glaze. This is the perfect decoration and touch of sweetness to make these scones more of a dessert.

Dairy-Free Scone Glaze

  • Prep Time:2 mins
  • Cook Time:0
  • Total Time:2 mins
  • Servings:20
  • Easy

    Ingredients

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Lactaid milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
bread, flour, chocolate, dough, cookie
Allison Curley
  • Step 1

    Add the powdered sugar to a bowl. Mix in the milk and vanilla extract with a whisk until it is thin and runny.

    milk, dairy product, cream, curd, yogurt, dairy, pudding, sweet
    Allison Curley

A lot of people might read this recipe and think it's gross to use Crisco as a replacement for butter. However,Ccrisco actually has 50% less saturated fat than butter. As far as baking goes, Crisco bakes exactly like butter, especially in scones, so the consistency doesn't change at all.

In terms of taste, the flavor of Crisco is mild, and with ingredients like vanilla extract and sugar, the taste will never reveal the substitution to anyone other than the baker. You can even buy butter-flavored Crisco if you really want to go all out. Either way, you'll bite into a delicious, dairy-free scone.