Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Glaze

Last Monday, I was running early for a doctor's appointment, so I decided to hop off the subway and stop off for a coffee at Starbucks. Of course, as soon as I got in the line, the rumbling in my stomach reminded me that I had eaten my lunch (quiche) for breakfast at 9:45 that morning as I'd forgotten to pack breakfast.

It was 2 pm, and I was really hungry. In honour of the fact that it had recently become autumn, I bought myself a pumpkin scone, settled into a cushy seat with a new magazine and sipped my chai tea latte.

I regretted the scone immediately. The icing was far too sweet, and it was painfully dry. It felt like it was absorbing all the moisture from my mouth as I was eating it.

Frustrated (and still hungry), post appointment, my husband and I went grocery shopping and I bought several tins of pumpkin. By God, I was going to prove that I could make a better pumpkin scone than Starbucks.

And this is it. I brought the first batch in to work to share with my coworkers (positive reviews all around), much to my husband's chagrin. So, I whipped up another batch this past weekend.

With the use of a food processor, this recipe comes together in minutes.


Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Glaze

(lightly adapted from The Shoebox Kitchen)

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
¼ cup brown sugar
3 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
pinch salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into ½" cubes
½ cup pumpkin puree
3 tbsp milk
1 large egg

glazes

1 cup icing sugar, divided
2 tbsp milk, divided
1/8 tsp cinnamon
pinch each ginger, cloves, nutmeg


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375º. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together flour, sugars, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt. Add butter, pulsing until you have small, pea sized clumps.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, milk and egg. With motor running, pour pumpkin mixture through tube, pulsing just until mixture comes together and forms a ball.

3. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a rectangle, about 1" thick. Divide vertically into 4 rectangles, then divide those rectangles in half horizontally to form 8 squares. Cut each square diagonally to create 16 triangles.

4. Place on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake for 15-17 minutes, or until lightly golden on the bottom. Let cool on a rack.

5. Whisk together ½ cup icing sugar with 1 tbsp milk. Brush over tops of cooled scones. Let dry for 15 minutes. In a small plastic bag, massage together remaining icing sugar with 1 tbsp milk and the spices. Cut the corner of the bag off to create a piping bag, and pipe the spiced glaze over top of the regular glaze. Let harden for 1 hour before transferring to an air tight container.

Nectarine White Iced Tea

We're heading off to Salt Spring Island for my cousin's DIY island wedding on Thursday night, and I've finally, FINALLY, settled on the two recipes we'll be using for the iced tea and the lemonade. In one gigantic container, we'll be having some nectarine white iced tea, and in the other, some raspberry lemonade.

As I was making up the ingredient list, I realized we'd need 104 lemons.

That means 104 lemons need rolling, juicing and measuring to hopefully make 13 cups of fresh lemon juice. Yikes! Luckily, I should have some help in the kitchen... which is great, because although the recipes are kept to no more than 4 ingredients each (sugar, fruit, water, tea/lemons), there's steeping, straining, pureeing, etc.

Anyway, here's the recipe for Nectarine White Iced Tea. It's a Canadian Living recipe. They use peeled peaches, but I'm lazy and used unpeeled (but washed!) nectarines.