Smells like Thanksgiving in June

I've been on a roll the last few weeks of making baked goods for breakfast on Sunday night to last us through the week. While I started doing it because Jeremy is a picky breakfast eater, I've discovered how nice it is to have something I can eat on the way out the door. But, I never get to enjoy these baked goods right out of the oven.

Except for yesterday. Yesterday was a holiday, and last weekend I took some of the butternut squash I pureed last winter out of the freezer to bake with. And one of my favorite ways to bake with it is to make these pumpkin scones.

I've made these scones a dozen times, but they never quite came out just right. The dough would be too wet, or when I baked them, they would spread out on the cookie sheet. But yesterday was probably the closest I've came to getting them the right texture of a real scone--crumbly and slightly dry. And, it's likely because I screwed up making them and didn't follow the directions. I was distracted with a couple other tasks while I was mixing up the ingredients, and before I knew it, I had just dumped all the ingredients into the bowl instead of mixing the dry and wet seperately and folding the wet ingredients into the dry. It turned out to be a happy mistake when they came out of the oven.

I love this recipe because it's not too sweet. The spices are what really makes the recipe, though. When they came out of the oven, I swear I smelled Thanksgiving.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on a website somewhere that claimed to be a copycat recipe of Starbucks' Pumpkin Scones. I've never had those, so I don't know, but these are definitely delicious.

Pumpkin Scones (makes 8 scones)

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup buckwheat flour (you could just use 2 cups AP flour)
1 Tb baking powder
6 Tb cold unsalted butter
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (or other winter squash such as butternut or hubbard)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground clove
1 tsp cinnamon
7 Tb sugar
3 Tb milk or half and half (I used 2% yesterday)
1 Tb sanding sugar or large crystal demerara sugar to sprinkle on top (optional)

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients well. In a seperate bowl, mix the pumpkin puree, egg, milk or half and half and vanilla. Cut cold butter into pieces and add to flour mixture. Use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour until it is pea-sized crumbles. Fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Mix until the dough doesn't have any more pockets of flour and is a uniform consistency. It will be very dry and sticky. On a well-flour surface, pat out dough in a disk to about 1 inch thick. I use a pizza cutter, which I dip in flour after each cut, to make 8 pieces, just like you were cutting a pizza. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. I use a dessert server dipped in flour to lift each piece off and place them on the the baking sheet. I leave about an inch between each piece. Brush with a little bit of milk and sprinkle tops with sugar if desired. Bake 14-16 minutes until browned.

Hot out of the oven with a latte. Perfect.

According to my LoseIt! App, each scone made just as I described above has 247 calories in them. Not great, but not too bad considering most baked goods at the bakery or at a restaurant have way more calories.

I can attest that these scones are, in fact, best enjoyed hot right out of the oven. And maybe with some apple butter on them. And maybe they might just be so good that way that you decide to enjoy two of them. But I'm just sayin.