Pumpkin Spice Scones

Pumpkin Spice Scones

Well, I hope you’re ready for a flood of pumpkin recipes, because it happened. I opened my first can of pumpkin of the season. Now I’ll be making pumpkin recipes until I find myself without a partial can of pumpkin in the fridge! Actually, Michelle had a great idea to use leftover pumpkin in a smoothie, but when I went to her blog to find the recipe I found a recipe for pumpkin PANCAKES, so now I have to make those too!

Side note: I am extremely suggestible. (I’m also fond of run-on sentences, but that’s neither here nor there.) And I get songs stuck in my head with mind-numbing (don’t I wish) swiftness. My family is well aware of this, of course. So I go along, minding my own business, when all of the sudden I get a random phone call, usually from my dad. I pick up and hear, ‘this is the song that never eeeeeeeends, it just goes on and on my frieeeeeeeeeeeends, somebody started singing it not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it forever just becauuuuuuuuse, this is the song that never ends’, and then my head explodes. 

So, in case you were wondering (although I don’t know why you would be) when I see a lonesome, half used can of pumpkin in the fridge, there is a soundtrack that starts playing in my head, and it goes like this, ‘ this is the pumpkin that never ends, it just goes on and on my frieeeeeeeends. . . ‘

Well, enough about me, let’s make some scones.

 

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Do you use that cutting edge on the box? I don’t. I use scissors. I have wasted SO much paper because it won’t tear straight. And that stuff is pricey! Grab some scissors!

In a large bowl, measure out 1 cup AP flour, 1 cup cake flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, and 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger.

Whisk it all together and put the bowl in the freezer. (I also put my pastry cutter and bench scrape in the freezer.)

In a medium bowl, measure out 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, 1/3 cup cream, 6 tablespoons brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. (Aren’t those little balls of sugar cute?)

Mix well and put the bowl in the freezer.

Cut up 6 tablespoons of butter.

Take out the bowl of dry ingredients and the pastry cutter and cut the butter into the flour. . .

 

. . until you get coarse crumbs.

Hopefully you already quartered your macadamia nuts. If you didn’t, just put the butter/flour mixture back in the freezer while you cut those babies up.

Add the nuts to the flour mixture and pour the wet ingredients over the top.

Mix until your dough starts to come together. It will be dry and sticky at the same time. It’s weird like that. Dump it onto a floured countertop.

Pat it out into a circle about 3/4 of an inch thick.

Use the pastry cutter to cut the circle into 8 pieces. (You could also use a sharp knife.) I find that if you make 8 separate cuts you get nicer points on the scones, as opposed to making 4 big cuts.

Set the pieces on the baking sheet.

I thought they looked a little dry, so I made a quick egg wash from a yolk and a little water.

The four on the right have egg wash. And it’s nothing short of a miracle that they did not get a sprinkling of crystallized sugar. That’s my favorite topping on a scone. I had a really hard time not putting some on!

Bake for 15 minutes.

That should be enough time to brew a pot of coffee. . . . .

And clean up the disaster you made while putting the scones together. Not to mention the mess made by two hungry hunters that left the house at the buttcrack of dawn.

See! You should even have time to whip up the glaze! (That’s what is sitting on the cutting board.)

Freshly baked scones = instant aromatherapy.

Put them on a cooling rack. The four on the right are the ones with the egg wash. I’ll leave it up to you (do I have much choice?) but I prefer the look of the ones with the egg wash. Oh, and here’s a little trick. . . take the piece of parchment and slide it under the cooling rack. Then, if you’re careful, when you glaze the scones the excess will fall onto it and you’ll have less of a mess to clean up!

Drizzle on your glaze.

See! What did I tell you! Easy-peasy.   

            

Pumpkin Spice Scones

Adapted from Pinch My Salt 

1 cup AP flour

1 cup cake flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

2/3 cup macadamia nuts, quartered

1/3 cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup heavy cream

6 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon of water for egg wash

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Get out a baking sheet and line with parchment paper.

Cut the butter into small pieces, put it in a small bowl and put it back in the refrigerator.

In a medium bowl, combine both flours, baking powder, salt, and spices. Whisk together well. Place bowl in freezer .

In a separate bowl, combine pumpkin, heavy cream, brown sugar, and vanilla. Whisk together well. Put this bowl in freezer and take the other bowl back out.

Get the butter pieces out of the fridge and dump them into the bowl with the flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or rub it in with your fingertips until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the macadamia nuts.

Get the pumpkin mixture out of the freezer and pour into the flour mixture all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon until everything is just moistened. The dough will be very crumbly, this is the way it should be. Turn the mixture out onto the counter and push the pile together with your hands. It should stick together fairly well. Knead it just a couple of times until everything is together. Don’t knead it too much or the dough will get too sticky.

Pat the dough out into a rough circle, 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Cut it into 8 pieces. Place pieces on the baking sheet so that they are not touching. Brush with egg wash. Bake scones for about 15 minutes.

Ginger Molasses Icing

1 tablespoon molasses

2 tablespoons cream

4-6 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Stir together molasses, cream and ginger until combined. Add in powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time until you get a thickish consistency.  Drizzle over scones and enjoy!