How a Pie Became a Scone…

I’m a bit slow at posting this one. Sorry! I swear the pumpkin was not sitting in my fridge for nearly a week before getting tossed into a recipe. It was only 24 hours. I’m just slow and lazy when it comes to snagging the pictures from my phone and uploading them…. BLARGH!

Anyway, here we are, closer and closer to the holiday season. Snow is FINALLY falling here in NYC. Columbia’s campus is covered in lights (I love it when they wind the lights around the branches) and I have NO pictures for you of these things. It’s cold out, and my hands say “NO” when I think about taking them out of their pockets to snap a nice pic. But I’m still hopeful, and you should be too. One of these days, my mind will overcome the will of my hands and SNAP! picture! Perhaps I can get my friend Tina to participate in this photo game. She and I have a margarita date on Tuesday, after my FINAL FINAL!!!! WOOOT!!!

Ugh, just 2 finals this semester. Unfortunately they are on the same day. But hopefully neither one will be too brutal. Hopefully. And hopefully I’ll actually study for them. Then again, maybe I’ll just bake and hope for the best with the finals… My TA’s like cookies, right? (Also, how many times can I hope to use a form of “hope” in a paragraph?)

This recipe went through several permutations before being made. At first I wanted to make a pumpkin pie with a curried corn crust (I saw a recipe for this somewhere) , but then I got lazy and couldn’t decided on how exactly to execute it to my liking. Next I was thinking that it would be nice to make this into a cheesecake kind of deal, again with the curried corn crust. And again, I’m just lazy! Then I was thinking “corn pumpkin scones” that sounds easy. And it probably would have been just as easy as this recipe turned out to be, however I decided I was forcing the corn and pumpkin together at this point and that I would simply make pumpkin scones with candid pecans outside. The idea came from a pumpkin pecan recipe that I made for Turkey day: Pumpkin Praline Pie!

Also, please note that as I type this up and as I was baking these scones, I was listening to this song, nonstop!

Sigh. What can I say. I love her.

Pumpkin Praline Scones!
Inspired by This and by This
Yields: ~12 scones

Ingredients:
For Scones:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup, 6 ounces) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
1 cup half and half, cold
1 cup pumpkin puree (from scratch if you wish)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

For Pecan Covering:
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon dark Molasses

If you’re going to make the pumpkin puree from scratch, see instructions at end of this post.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with either a Silpat or parchment paper.

2. Place all dry ingredients and butter into food processor. Pulse for ~20 seconds until resembling a course meal. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside. I found that after this, there were a few chunks of butter that resisted chopping. They got thrown back into food processor with a couple handfulls of the course mixture and pulsed some more until they yielded to becoming course meal themselves.

3. in a smaller bowl, combine 1 cup pumpkin puree, 1 cup half and half, and vanilla. Mix this up with a fork and set aside. Then, in food processor, chop up pecans until finely chopped. Place in a medium bowl and add remaining pecan covering ingredients. Toss with a fork until combined.

4. Combine the pumpkin ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix with a fork. You’ll notice that the mixture is very fluffy! Odd, I know and NOT at all what I expected for a scone, but who am I to judge? I suspect its the large amount of baking soda that reacts with the milk to get fluffy texture. Anyway, go with and go with it relatively quickly. Grab your prepared pan and prepare to get a bit messy. Spoon a large amount of batter (~1/4 cup) out and plot it into your bowl of pecan covering. Don’t be dainty here. Just use your hand and roll the lump of batter a round then plop is (unceremoniously) onto the prepared baking sheet and repeat!

5. Bake the scones for ~20 minutes and then remove from oven. Allow to cool on pan for ~10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. I recommend serving with a lit butter (Cuz there’s not enough in them already, but hey, that’s just me!)

For making your own Pumpkin Puree:

1. Find a suitable pumpkin. When I weighted my pumpkin, it was about 2 lbs. I probably got about 10 ounces of puree out of it, so make sure your pumpkin will be large enough for whatever you’re planning on doing with it.

2. Completely wash your pumpkin and then chop the sucker in half! Watch your fingers!

3. Removed the seeds and the stringy bits. Then rub with oil and, since I was making this into a sweet baked good, I threw on some cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves so that those flavors would bake in a bit.

4. Then roast the halves face down at 400 degrees for 45-50 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when it’s easily pierced with a toothpick. I generally don’t worry about overcooking here, just under-cooking as no one wants tough pumpkin baked goods. Gross.

5. Remove your pumpkin from the oven and let cool for at least a half hour. It helps if you flip them so they’re face up. Another way that you’ll know they’re done is if the skin is very very easy to peel off the “meat”. Remove all the skin and place in a food processor. Puree the heck out of it! Store in an airtight container until ready to bake with it. WOOT!