Streusel-Topped Ginger Peach Cream Scones

Ripe summer peaches don’t need much help to steal the spotlight, and these scones give them a worthy stage. Tender cream scones studded with juicy peaches and bites of crystallized ginger are crowned with a crunchy oat streusel that bakes up deeply golden and crisp.

The contrast is what makes them special. The streusel crackles under your teeth while the scone beneath stays soft and rich. Sweet peaches, warm ginger, a little orange zest, and plenty of cream come together in a scone that manages to feel both comforting and a little bit special.

Whether you enjoy one with your morning coffee or sneak one or two in the afternoon for some Me Time, these scones taste like the best parts of peaches and cream and peach crisp all wrapped up in a generous texturally rich scone.

Peaches and Cream Ginger Scones, at a Glance

I know. They’re a lot to take in. We’re talking rich cream scones packed with both ground and crystallized ginger, an abundance of chopped peaches, and a light ginger streusel that tips them from tea-time treat to peach crisp-adjacent anytime smackerel.

✅Skill Level: Confident Beginner
✅Skills: The Muffin Method, Folding dough, Using a bench knife
✅Type: Streusel-Topped Scones
✅Number of Ingredients: 13
✅Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
✅Freezer Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour
✅Cook Time: 22-25 minutes
✅Yield: 8 scones

Jump Straight to the Recipe

How to Make Peaches and Cream Scones

First, I want you to know that you can make these without the streusel. Just form the scones, brush them with heavy cream, sprinkle them with coarse sugar, and call it a day.

Second, I also want you to know that making the streusel pays serious dividends. It adds buttery richness, toasty oats, and a crisp crunch that takes these from very good peach scones to “Are you kidding me with these peach crisp scones?!”

Sometimes what elevates a recipe is textural contrast, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. The tender scones studded with juicy peaches play beautifully against the crisp, golden streusel topping. I know because I tested them both ways. Multiple times.

Let’s take a look at the ingredients and substitutions, and then we’ll walk through how these little gems come together. If you’re ready to bake, feel free to jump straight to the recipe.

Ingredients and Substitutions

• peaches: Either fresh or frozen work here. Or if you only have 1 fresh peach that needs a job, you can supplement with frozen. These provide sweet juicy peach flavor, visual contrast, and general summery deliciousness. Sub any other stone fruit (cherries, plums, apricots, etc.) or even mango if desired.
• all-purpose flour: Provides the bulk and contributes to the crumb, yielding structure without being chewy. I used King Arthur, but any all-purpose flour should work beautifully.
• crystallized ginger: Adds generous sweet-chewy-hot bits throughout the scone, contributing to the moreishness. You can leave it out, especially if you plan on changing the flavor profile from ginger to something else.
• granulated sugar: Assists in browning, tenderizes the crumb, and provides a light, clean sweetness
• brown sugar: Assists in browning, tenderizes the crumb, and lends a little molasses note that gives both the scones and the streusel a nostalgic flavor profile.
• baking powder: Gives the lift. For cakes, a common ratio is about 1 teaspoon baking powder per cup (4-4½ ounces) of flour. This recipe uses a bit more than that to provide maximum rise in an egg-free cream scone.
• ground ginger: Adds a nice background warmth and “tingle” to the scones. If you aren’t a ginger fan, you can substitute cinnamon, a judicious amount of nutmeg, or cardamom.
• salt: A judicious amount of salt allows the spices to sing and the peach flavor to shine without the scones reading as salty
• orange zest: When I tested orange zest, it was because I didn’t have lemons (which also would work here). What I found was that, in the context of these scones, the orange doesn’t read as orange at all. It reads as brightness and focus. A really nice, if originally accidental, addition.
• heavy cream: The heavy cream does a lot of work in these scones. It provides both the liquid and most of the fat (butterfat suspended in cream).
  
  Not only does it bring richness and a distinct dairy creaminess, it also shortens the gluten thanks to that liquid fat. This is one reason cream scones generally don’t rise quite as high as butter-and-milk scones.
  
  You can substitute half butter and half whole milk for the cream. It will change the character of the scones, but they’ll still be delicious.
• vanilla: Adds a hint of extra creaminess as well as rounding out all the flavors
• rolled oats: Provides a subtle nuttiness and “I’m peach crisp” texture to the streusel
• butter: Brings the streusel together into discrete little pebbles of goodness rather than a floury mess. Butter also carries flavor, allowing the ginger in the streusel to shine

Now let’s talk about the components of these scones and how to bring them all together into one coherent, delicious, texturally interesting Baked Item.

Mise en Place: Peaches, Dough, and Streusel

There are four components to the dough: frozen diced peaches, the dry ingredients, the wet ingredients, and the streusel. Here’s how to get everything ready to go so the assembly and baking are almost intuitive.

1. Chop the peaches into bite-sized pieces. If using frozen peaches, use a chef’s knife to chop them frozen and return them to the freezer. If using fresh, chop them, spread them onto a parchment-lined tray, and freeze them for about an hour.
2. Place all the dry ingredients for the scones in a medium bowl, and….
3. …whisk them well.
4. In a small bowl, place all the streusel ingredients, and….
5. …mix them together with your fingertips until no loose flour, oats, or sugar remains
6. Mix the heavy cream and vanilla together in a liquid measure, and you’re ready to make streusel-topped scones!

Making the Dough

The main thing to remember when making scones is that you want to keep everything nice and cold. We do this in three ways: folding frozen peaches into the dough, adding refrigerator-temperature heavy cream, and freezing the shaped and topped scones for about 30 minutes before baking.

All this keeping-things-cold will reward us with scones that rise higher and hold their shape better.

1. Dump the frozen peaches on top of the dry ingredients, and give them a few stirs to distribute them.
2. Pour in the heavy cream/vanilla mixture and give the dough a brief mix until most of the dry ingredients are wet. Dough will be very shaggy and upsetting. It’s fine.
3. Dust your clean work surface with a moderate amount of flour, and scrape all the dough out in a pile.
4. Use your hands to pat the dough into a rough round.
5. Use your bench knife to fold the dough into fourths. It will still look very messy, but your folds have accomplished two goals: a)the dough gets a bit more organized, and b)the peaches are more evenly distributed from top to bottom.
6. Use your hands to pat the dough into a circle roughly 8″ /20cm in diameter. It does not have to be perfect, but take a moment to get as clean an outer edge as you can.

Bringing It All Together

And now for the literal crowning glory: the oat streusel. Here’s how to ensure it sticks to your scones.

1. Brush about 2 Tablespoons of heavy cream evenly over the surface of your dough.
2. Pile the streusel on, and…
3. …quickly pat it out evenly. No need to press super hard, but make sure you have a thin, even layer.
4. Use your bench knife to cut the scones into 8 wedges and arrange them on a baking sheet. Freeze for 30 minutes before baking.

Jenni Says: For the best possible rise, don’t skip the freezer time. It’s the difference between tall, proud scones and short, sad scones.

First We Bake. Then We Eat. (What to Expect from These Scones)

These scones are best served warm or at room temperature. But really: warm.

Expect a crisp, buttery streusel that gives way to a soft, rich, almost creamy scone studded with juicy peaches and little bursts of crystallized ginger. The contrast in textures is what makes these so memorable.

You’ll have to taste them yourself to believe just how fantastic they are.

Try them with butter and honey, or lean into the peachiness with a generous smear of peach jam. They’re also excellent just as they are, fresh from the oven when the contrast between the crisp streusel and the creamy scone is at its peak.

Ginger Peach Scones Q&A

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask questions in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

More Breakfast and Brunch Possibilities

If you love a scone for its “biscuit-adjacency,” you may want to take a look at my all-butter angel biscuits or my flaky cheese biscuits. The angel biscuits use both yeast and baking powder to ensure a lovely rise while the flaky cheese biscuits sort of speak for themselves.

If you’re more about the peaches, then definitely check out my peaches and cream cobbler, because juicy peaches, cream cheese, and crispy sweet dough sound like breakfast to me.

And if the streusel is what grabbed your attention, try my brown butter blueberry buckle in all its streusel-topped majesty. And please do not sleep on my brown sugar cinnamon coffee cake, because that guy is all about the streusel.

A Note About Measurements

My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.

For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.

I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.

This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.

Escali Primo Digital Scale

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