It’s not giving in to peer pressure…

Because frankly I’m too much of a hard ass to for something like that to work. The fact of the matter is, I fucking love pumpkin. I do. If those damn things grew year round I’d never be without it. I know I can probably get canned year round but I’d rather buy when it’s in season. Even if I do still get the canned version for simplicity’s sake.

Canned? But you’re a pastry chef! Yeah I know and I’ve said this at least twice in the past month – just because I CAN make everything from scratch, doesn’t mean I want to. I can buy a pumpkin, cut it up, roast it, take all the yummy pulp and all that jazz out but you know what? Opening a can is a lot easier.

About the only other flavor I love more than pumpkin is cinnamon. Cinnamon is a spice I will use year round with pleasure and glee. Evil glee.

Be warned: This will be a LONG post. You’re getting 2 for 1 this week.

Don’t want to read through everything? Well you’re missing out. I mean, I’m witty as hell, but whatever. Here, have instant gratification. You’ll be back…mostly because any recipe modifications are written in here.

Since it’s the last weekend before I head out of town to recuperate from my actual job (shocking right? I have a job that’s not baking!) with friends in the Pacific Northwest I’m going to open some windows, let in the crisp it-actually-feels-like-fall air, and break out my two favorite things: pumpkin and cinnamon. We’re sticking to the scones medium though because I love having those for breakfast and I’ll be changing a few things up with how I put everything together. The most notable difference is I will be doing a double batch again, but this time we’re doing two separate batches, one after the other.

First thing I did was cube up my butter and then stick it all back in the fridge to keep chilled while I measured out all the dry ingredients and sifted them together.

BUTTER!

I did some research before deciding to do my pumpkin scones and one video I watched the guy actually said that he wasn’t going to sift his dry ingredients because sifting was “old school” and not the good kind, that it was more like the memorizing dates important dates you could just look up online old school. Oh really? Because personally I always sift my flour and sugar. ALWAYS. Even when it’s not called for. Why? Because I like a smooth texture in my dough. It looks amazing and the baked goods come out wonderful.

So smooth…

See that picture below? I don’t want those things in my dough, thanks.

Things I don’t want in my dough

After all the cubing and the sifting I added the extra dry ingredients: 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice to one batch and 4 oz of cinnamon sugar to another then I bagged them up into gallon freezer bags (because those were the type I had) and took a break for lunch and to go to the store for eggs since I didn’t bother to make sure I had any. Good job me right?

Sifting is important m’kay?

Cinnamon Suger Love

Pumpkin Spice Goodness

Upon my triumphant return with eggs in hand I continued to work up my doughs by putting half of the pumpkin scones dry mix into my food processor along with half of the chilled cubed butter to pulse until the butter was cut in and the dry ingredients looked like sand, once that was done I poured the first half into a mixing bowl and cut butter into the rest of the dry ingredients.

Cutting in the butter

Sandy, grainy, good.

This was followed up by mixing up the wet ingredients, which for the pumpkin scones, included 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin puree.

Enter the pumpkin

Once the pumpkin was mixed in I made a well in the bowl the dry ingredients were waiting in and poured the mixture of heavy cream, eggs and pumpkin in. I started out using the whisk to integrate the dry and wet then swapped it out for some good old elbow grease. By which I of course mean my hands. This time around I gave my stand mixer a rest and did the mixing by hand because with all the scones I’ll be eating I could afford to burn a few calories with some manual labor.

When worlds collide

Once I had the pumpkin dough mixed up I needed to add in more pastry flour and sugar (I remembered this time!) since the pumpkin puree threw my ratio of dry to wet ingredients off. I added about 2 oz. more of flour and 1 oz more of sugar in order to get the dough to a consistency I could work with. The cinnamon sugar scones were almost the same process with the exception of the cinnamon sugar was added with the dry ingredients and threw the ration off in the opposite direction resulting in me needed to add more heavy cream to get the dough to the right consistency. Once the cinnamon sugar dough was ready I added in 12 oz of walnuts and had a fun time doing the mixing dance.

Work it girl!

Now that both doughs were mixed up I put them onto sheet pans I had prepped earlier with parchment paper and flattened them out to the shape and thickness I wanted. They both went into the fridge to chill for a few hours while I caught up on some TV.

Pumpkin Dough

Cinnamon Walnut Dough

After they chilled I whipped up some egg wash and pre-heated the oven to 400 degrees then got to cutting out my scones. I decided to make circular scones this week because I like being different. Deal with it. After egg washing them and letting them rest for a few minutes they went into the oven to bake up and make my apartment smell amazing.

Circular Scones! INCONCEIVABLE!

Once the scones were done I let them cool and whipped up the simple syrup, cinnamon sugar, and sugar glaze.

Simple Syrup

Sugar Glaze

After the simple syrup was ready I added some to silvered almonds to candy them for garnishing the pumpkin scones.

Candied Almonds

With the scones cooled off there was nothing left to do but garnish them. The pumpkin scones got a drizzle of sugar glaze, some candied almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar. For the cinnamon walnut scones I went with a glaze of simple syrup, a dusting of cinnamon sugar and a drizzle of the sugar glaze. I was overly pleased with the results of the pumpkin scones, they were light, fluffy and moist with a great balance of flavor. The cinnamon scones were light, fluffy and moist but the flavor ratio seemed a bit off so this recipe will be tagged for later development.

Pumpkin Scones

Cinnamon Walnut Scones

Yeah so it’s not a cupcake…

I know, first post of a new blog telling people to have a cupcake and the first thing I’m shoving down your virtual throats is scones.

I felt like making scones. Deal with it.

Technically I felt like remaking scones. Why? Because I’m a perfectionist and when I made them last week I wasn’t happy with them. Years ago, back in culinary school we were in bake shop playing with the wide assortment of quick breads and one of our assignments was to make scones. Basic recipe was easy enough but we got to choose our garnishes. I went to the pantry and started searching for good stuff to stick in the dough I had already made. I found dried cherries and had a lovely evil grin break out across my face and may or may not have done a cackle or two. After chopping them up (pain in the ass is an understatement) I added them in, threw the dough in the oven and eighteen minutes later out came some of the best tasting things I’ve made. And I’ve made a lot.

With fall hitting and everything coming up pumpkin I decided I wanted to make them again because like I said, everything is coming up pumpkin and this girl wanted something outside the fad box.

My biggest weakness in baking is I tend to forget that while I have a sexy KitchenAid mixer, it’s not a commercial grade one which means while it’s easy as hell to double or triple a recipe, my mixer tends to get slightly angry with me and throws dough EVERYWHERE.

So last week I whipped up the dough, threw in the cherries, wiped the dough off my walls, counter and floor, and split the batch of what was left into two sheet pans to chill in the fridge. While putting the dough onto the sheet pans I realized it was way too tacky so I added more flour to it. I baked off one of the batches of dough, let the scones cool, took a bite and found myself very unhappy. The were flavorless. Cue the “DAMMIT” dance. There I was with 40 scones that were shit, feeling less than thrilled.  So off to the store I went to buy some cherries to make a coulis to drizzle on them only to find…NO CHERRIES. It’s like the universe was against me and frankly, that hurt my feelings.

And old instructor of mine always said the difference between a cook and a chef is a cook has nothing but problems while a chef has nothing but solutions. Solution? Sugar glaze. I went back home to whip up a batch and dip some scones. After letting the glaze dry I take a bite and PROBLEM SOLVED. At least for this batch, now what to do about the batch of dough still chilling in the fridge? Given it was late and someone (cough, me, cough) had work in the morning I wrapped the dough and went to bed. While brushing my teeth the next morning the lightbulb goes off – added flour, did not add sugar, ratio was off…ADD SUGAR.

This weekend I brought my dough back to room temp, put it back in the mixer, added sugar and some more dried cherries cause I had them and wasn’t using them for anything else, baked them off and… PERFECTION.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to sit back and enjoy some dried cherry scones with tea like the pretend British person I am. Why? Cause this bitch has class.

Dried Cherry Scones

Cream Scones (makes about 40) –

1 lb 10 oz Pastry flour

2 tsp Salt

1 oz Baking Powder

3 oz Sugar

12 oz Butter, cubed, cold

2 oz Eggs

2 oz Egg Yolks

15 fl oz Heavy Cream

12 0z Garnish if desired

Egg Wash – as needed

1. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper

2. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar

3. Add the butter to the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed with the paddle attachment to incorporate

4. Combine the eggs, yolks, and heavy cream

5. Add the egg mixture to the shifted dry ingredients and butter all at once, mix to incorporate, then add the garnish, if using. Do not over mix.

6. Place the dough on the prepared sheet pan , and pat or roll it until it is approximately 1 in/3 cm thick. Chill in the refrigerator until firm, at least 1 hour.

7. Cut the dough into the desired shape, brush with egg wash, let rest for 5 minutes, and brush with egg wash again.

8. Bake at 400 degrees F/204 degrees C until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes.

9. Cool the scones on the sheet pan for a few minutes, then transfer them to racks to cool completely.

 

Egg Wash

8 0z Eggs

8 fl oz Milk

pinch Salt

 

Sugar Glaze

Powdered Sugar

Milk

Vanilla Extract

1. Mix the ingredients to create the desired consistency, less milk will create a thicker more glue like consistency. You can use a clear colored vanilla extract for a bright white glaze.