How have I never made pumpkin scones!

Adapted recipe, from I don't even remember which scone I've made before. Made a double batch even though it was a test recipe. Fortunately they're delicious: texture just shy of crumbly, nice dense mouth feel. Glazed the second batch with maple syrup, for a little extra sweetness.

In the spirit of October Unprocessed, I grated and/or ground my own pumpkin pie spice-- nutmegs, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, dried ginger, all processed in a simple coffee grinder. To clean between each grinding, run a couple tablespoons of white rice through it, then wipe with a dry rag. You needed to use that white rice for something anyway!)

I left all ingredients except the yogurt and butter out so they were room temp.

Definite winner.

Pumpkin maple scones

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (for October unprocessed, use all unbleached wheat flour)
1 cup unbleached wheat or whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 T maple sugar*
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (mix your own, lots of recipes on the web)
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits (or grate frozen butter. Make sure the grater is also frozen)
¾ cup raisins, plumped

1/4 cup maple syrup
1 large egg
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup plain yogurt or sour cream

* Yes, I know that maple sugar is $16 a pound and hard to find. If you don't have any, or want to spend the money, substitute 1 T dark corn syrup, and cut back the maple syrup by that amount. You can get maple sugar from The Spice House.

Preheat oven to 400F (375 if you have a baking stone in your oven) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. Beat together the liquid ingredients and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the plumped raisins into the flour mixture. (If you don't plump them, they'll dry out when baking. To plump raisins, just cover them with water in a small glass mixing bowl and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Drain.) Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be sticky and slightly elastic.
Roll dough out until it's about 1/2 thick, then cut into wedges. Dough rolled out to about 10" disc. Place onto a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1 inch apart on and bake for 17 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.

Sconeday friends

Lindsay Shepard, Leah Ray, Lamanda Joy, and Maribeth Brewer enjoying peach scones and figuring out the next steps for the Peterson Garden Project.

Since I had to clean the house, too, I didn't try to come up with a new scone; this is the recipe I used, substituting peaches for rhubarb.

I heart scones

Best of the web: traditional scones with cucumber goat cheese spread.

Sometimes it's best just to open up a cookbook. Heart shaped just because.

Bloom Day scones

An unexpected tropical visitor; I "stage" the amaryllis bulbs in the garden. They never bloomed outdoors before! More Bloom Day pictures on Folia and Flickr.

Peach cornmeal scones

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup stone ground cornmeal
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1 large or 2 small peaches, peeled and diced
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup peach syrup

To make peach syrup, put the peach skins plus 1/2 cup sugar in 1 cup of water. Bring to a full boil, boil for 10 minutes. Strain through a food mill. You can use the leftover over pancakes, ice cream, or in sparking water.

Heat oven to 400°.

Mix the liquid ingredients and set aside.

Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt. Cut butter into pieces and add to the dry ingredients, mixing with a pastry blender until the texture resembles corn meal. Stir in dried cranberries and diced peaches. Mix thorougly, then add the liquids and combine until thoroughly mixed. The dough will be quite wet. Spoon onto a baking sheet lined with parchment, at least 2 inches apart. Makes 9 large or 12 small scones. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

By the way, when you accidentally turn off the oven, they don't rise very well. What can I say.


Bloom Day bouquet: Cosmos Rose Bon-Bon from Renee's Garden, Black Eyed Susan, Tagetes, and Russian Sage.

Haiku and rosemary

On a drizzly day
Mosquitos in the garden
Warm scones in the house

Rosemary Honey Scones
adapted from Savoury Honey Scones

2¼ teaspoons rosemary, finely chopped and divided
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon coarse salt
6 tablespoons cold butter

1/2 cup sour cream,
1/2 cup milk
¼ cup honey
1 egg

Preheat oven to 425°. In a large bowl, mix 2 teaspoons rosemary with all other dry ingredients. Cut in the butter, mixing until it has the consistency of coarse meal.

Whisk together honey, milk, sour cream, and egg. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients until a soft dough forms. Form dough into a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and separate the dough into 2 equal portions, pat each portion into a circle about ¾-inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges.

Separate and arrange wedges on waxed paper or baking sheet. Brush tops with a little heavy cream or melted butter and sprinkle with remaining rosemary. Place in oven and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Muffins

Well, I missed sconeday again, with no good excuse this week. Monday just slipped by; don't think I wasn't thinking about scones, I just didn't quite get it together to actually make them. Plus I still had the molasses scones from last week left over.

So, since it isn't sconeday, I decided this week not to make scones, and go a little apostate here and try muffins. I used a recipe from my favorite cook book, inherited from my mother. The Woman's Home Companion cookbook is one of those teaching cookbooks so common in the 40s and 50s-- (I have stacks of them from my mother). It tells you all the things you need to know about each type of food-- what it should look like at each step of the way, what will happen if you do it wrong, and how to fix it.

Here's the muffin recipe, verbatim, in hideous violation of copyright. Seriously, if you can get your hands on this book, buy it.

Muffin Technique (edited)
"Good muffins are symmetrical in shape, with straight sides and a slightly rounded top. The crust is a rich golden brown and rough pebbly texture, slightly glazed in appearance. The grian is uniform and slightly coarse, with medium-sized air cells and a moist tender crumb.

"The first and foremost secret of success is in the mixing. The batter must be stirred never beaten, only until the dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened. At this stage the mixutre will appear rough and lumpy, and will break easily when lifted with the spoon. The small lumps which remain will take care of themselves during baking.

"Immediately after mixing the batter should be transferred to the pans in order to avoid the loss of leavening gas. Muffin pans should be well reased on the bottom but just lightly greased or not at all ont he sides. This allows the batter to cling more tenaciously to the sides of the pan during rising and makes for better volume.

Whole Wheat Muffins
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar (I used maple sugar)

Plumped raisins

1 cup whole milk
1 egg lightly beaten
3 T melted shortening (I used butter, but this is a post war book so they probably used lard, or eek, Crisco)

Sift white flour (not necessary with most modern flours); add baking powder, salt and sugar, sift or whisk together, add wheat flour, mix. Mix in raisins. Combine egg, milk and melted shortening and add to flour mixture. Mix until just moistened. Batter will be thick.

Fill greased muffin pans about 2/3 full and bake in a hot oven 20 to 25 minutes. Makes 12 to 15 medium sized muffins. That's a little homemade blueberry preserves on there, by the by.

Sick in bed

I almost missed sconeday for a second week in a row, as I was sick in bed yesterday and Sunday, my usual baking days. But it just gave me time to think about what to make today. These might be more suited to a cold autumn day than late July's 90 degree humidity, but why not start early, testing the Thanksgiving recipes!

Molasses scones

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 T cane sugar
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
¾ cup raisins, plumped

1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup yogurt

Preheat oven to 400F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Adjust a baking rack to the middle position. Beat together the molasses, eggs, and sour cream.

Mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, knife or your hands until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir the plumped raisins into the flour mixture. (If you don't plump them, they'll dry out when baking. To plump raisins, just cover them with water in a small glass mixing bowl and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Drain.) Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Dough will be sticky and slightly elastic.

Roll dough out until it's about 1/2 thick, then cut into 3" circles using a glass or donut cutter. Place onto a parchment-covered baking sheet about 1 inch apart on and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them cool slightly before serving.