Guess what? Two days in a row and I’m posting something – again! Woohoo! To celebrate, let’s make scones. Yum.
Here’s the ingredients. Pivotal step to baking I’ve found (its not weighed, guys, its in standard American measuring. Embarrassing, I know. I’ll work up to weights but baby steps – had the recipe pre-culinary school):
2 ¾ cups flour ⅓ cup sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder ¾ teaspoon salt ¾ teaspoon cinnamon, or more, depending on your like of cinnamon. I sometimes add a bit more. Actually, I do this for all the spices in this. ¼ teaspoon ground ginger ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
½ cup cold butter
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
Milk for topping. Sounds sort of gross. Its not.
Cinnamon and Sugar mix for topping, because I like it. You might want some glaze too. I like that also. Or both. Even better.
This is sort of fun – step by step scone making. Mmm. I’m getting hungry. Better get going. Here we go…
Start by sifting together all the ingredients. All of them. In a bowl. Or, to be wild and less exact but perfectly fine for this recipe, measure them out, put them in said bowl, and combine with a whisk. Told you, whisk time. Imagine this picture with flour (this is a first, posting a recipe. I’m not good at it yet. Shh).
Once you’ve whisked that up, add the butter. Cold butter. In all its glory. Its sort of like biscuit making, scone making is. Possibly why I love both delicious treats – their similarity. Anyway, here’s some butter action. Damn good action.
Once you have cut that into the flour mix, making the butter into about pea size (don’t overdo this step, bigger pieces of butter means flaky yummy scones, not flat and sad scones), grab another bowl. Yes, things get a bit dirty when making pumpkin scones, if dirty for you means 2 bowls when baking. It happens (sidenote: cleaning up after baking is helped by either having guilted others into cleaning up since you are making them delicious treats, or red wine. Most things are helped by red wine though).
In the new, clean bowl, mix up the wet ingredients. Things get orange here. Look how pretty. Super blue bowls help out the juxtaposition of the orange coloring, no?
Now, here’s where things don’t get complicated. Take the wet ingredients and dump on the flour mix. Easy peasy. So easy, you can use a chipped bowl you have had since childhood and it still works. Awesome.
Now mix. Wild, I know. Don’t over mix, just make everything orange in the bowl.
Mix more than that picture. Then get over excited to eat scones and do these steps without taking pictures:
Put the mix on a piece of parchment that you first put on a cookie sheet (or its hard to move around, though I would never know from experience) and shape into a square, about 1 ½ inch high.
Paint with milk on top. Then sprinkle (or pour copious amounts of) the cinnamon sugar mix on top. Make sure there is lots of sugar in the mix because it tastes better. Oh and won’t burn while baking.
Put the parchment lined cookie sheet with the square of scone batter in the freezer for about 30 minutes. This will make the scones rise better and be flakier and, in general, more delicious. Why, you ask. Because I said so. Trust me. Or don’t and have sad, flat scones (though rarely might appear to be normal scones because you are magic).
While you freeze them, turn on the oven to about 425F. Ok, not about. Turn the oven to that temp.
After you chill them out, cut them into any size triangle you want. Hey, cut them into any shape you want really. These are your scones and shape doesn’t matter. Making them easier to hold while hot and stuff in your mouth is the pivotal part.
Now, this is key to eating delicious scones. Put them in the oven. For 20-25 minutes. I know the batter tastes pretty good, but I promise it tastes better once baked. This is why I went to school guys, to help out at this point. Bake your baked goods.
Now, once you make sure they are baked (test with a toothpick – wait until it comes out clean looking), take them out of the oven. Stare at them. Decide if you want to glaze them (try with a maple syrup glaze, yum. Its powdered sugar, cinnamon, a bit of vanilla extract, maple syrup and some milk – mix it up and done).
Or, if you are me, be too hungry to glaze them. Immediately push them around on the parchment to see if they are too hot to eat. Decide they are.
You know, a wise man once told me, “Too hot for your hand, too hot for your mouth.” He had burned his mouth on pizza that he stuffed in his mouth because the cheese was burning his hand. Don’t listen to him. Push the scones around a bit more to pretend like they are cooler now.
Definitely cool enough to eat now. Rip off a piece, toss between your hands for about 3 seconds and then immediately eat. At this point, you will burn your mouth. I didn’t care, because pumpkin scones are awesome and delicious, but this is really a personal decision, I understand.
YUM.
Ok, off to eat the rest of this…research and all. Enjoy! Oh, and here’s the cake baked from yesterday. Not bad, ey? Don’t worry, I glazed that guy before I gave it to my nephew right before he went to bed. Maybe I’ll make another recipe post later…and maybe I’ll remember to take pictures of all the steps this time…maybe.
I realize October Challenge might prove to be dangerous now that I’ve started down this path…