Pumpkin Scones

About 2 years ago, I discovered a fabulous Pumpkin Scone Recipe. I had never made scones at all before, but these sure did go fast at home and at book club meetings! Over time, I've changed the recipe a little based on ingredients I usually have on hand and to make more scones. Here's how I make them now:

1 3/4 C. all purpose flour
1/4 C. cornstarch (makes them less dense)
3 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 t. ground allspice
1/2 t. ground ginger
12 T. cold butter, cut into pieces
2/3 C. pumpkin puree
2/3 C. evaporated milk
3/4 C. brown sugar
1 T. vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly grease a pizza stone or foil lined cookie sheet (I use non-stick cooking spray). In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients. Place bowl in freezer.

2. In a separate bowl, combine pumpkin, evaporated milk, brown sugar, and vanilla. Put this bowl in freezer and take the other bowl back out. Dump the butter pieces into the flour bowl. Rub the butter in with your fingertips until it resembles coarse crumbs.

3. Get the liquid mixture out of the freezer and pour into the flour mixture all at once. Stir until everything is just moistened. Turn the mixture out onto the counter and knead it just a couple of times until everything is together. Don’t knead it too much or the dough will get too sticky.

4. Separate the dough into two equal pieces. Pat each piece out into a rough circle, 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Cut it like a pie into 8 pieces. Place pieces on the baking sheet so that they are not touching. Bake scones for about 15 minutes at 425 degrees. They should be light brown on the bottom, the tops will darken as they cool.

Icing: Mix together 1 C. powdered sugar, 2 T. milk, 1/4 – 1/2 t. cinnamon (to taste). Adjust amounts to change consistency as desired. Put the icing into a small ziploc bag, cut the corner off the bag and pipe onto the scones.

This recipe was copied from the Pinch My Salt site and I only changed the things I now do differently from the original recipe. As an aside, I did actually use cream in the scones pictured above because I happened to have it on hand. Honestly, I like the scones with evaporated milk better.

After I make this recipe, the leftover pumpkin in the can (a regular 15oz can) is just enough to make a loaf of pumpkin bread too. Here's the recipe I use for that:

about 1/2 can pumpkin
2 eggs
1/2 C applesauce
1 1/2 C sugar
1 3/4 C flour
3/4 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
3/4 t ground all spice
3/4 t freshly ground nutmeg
3/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a loaf pan (I use non stick spray and a stoneware loaf pan)

2. Combine the pumpkin, applesauce, eggs and sugar.

3. In a separate bowl, combine the other ingredients. Mix the dry mixture into the wet mixture.

4. Pour into loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour.