Pumpkin-Cranberry Scones

I began this month with the intention of posting a recipe for Pumpkin-Cranberry Scones. As always, December has raced by. So I thought that posting the recipe would be a good way to end the month. Admittedly it is a recipe more appropriate for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I'm not quite ready to let go of the Christmas holiday—our decorations are still up (I always keep them up until Twelfth-Night). I also happened to have part of a can of pumpkin leftover from something else, and since the scones only use a small amount of pumpkin, they are useful (along with pumpkin pancakes and my dog) for using up the end of a can.

You may recall that I didn't post the recipe when I originally wanted to because of a sleepless night spent worrying about my cat. Even though he is still interfering with my sleep via ever new and various methods, I did manage to get all of the ingredients correctly measured and into the bowl this time. I probably shouldn't have blamed him for my original error, but it gave me the opportunity to share his picture. Who would believe this guy could ever cause any trouble?

My recipe for Pumpkin-Cranberry Scones is a variation on my Cream Scone recipe. The thing that makes the cream scone recipe unique is that all of the liquid and all of the fat are supplied by heavy cream. Since replacing some of the cream with pumpkin reduces the overall fat content in the recipe, it was necessary to add some butter to the recipe. The butter is added by rubbing it into the dry ingredients as for a traditional scone. The resulting pumpkin scones have a little less butterfat than the original cream scones.

Besides these changes to liquid and fat, I increased the sugar from 4 to 6 tablespoons—the pumpkin seems to require just a little extra sweetness. If you would like an even sweeter scone, you could add another tablespoon of sugar. I also increased the salt by fifty percent. I was surprised to discover during my testing that the pumpkin seems to demand it. Without the additional salt, the scones tasted flat and uninteresting—even with all of the spices that I added to go with the pumpkin.

When mixing these scones up, they will seem very dry. But this is deceptive. There is something about the thick pumpkin...the liquid it provides is slow to be absorbed by the dry ingredients. Once you have added all of the liquid called for in the recipe, poke the shaggy/crumbly dough that is forming. If it is very soft, there is enough liquid in the dough and it will continue to be absorbed by the dry ingredients. If the forming dough feels tight or firm, dribble in a little more cream. But be careful. It is surprising how quickly theses scones go from appearing to be dry and unmanageable to being wet and sticky and unmanageable.

Pulling the dough together is accomplished out of the bowl and on the counter. But the "kneading" process is not really a traditional knead. Because the initial dough is so shaggy, the process is really more of a gathering and pressing followed by a slight rocking motion—not the lift-fold-press-turn of a typical knead. Kneading as it is traditionally understood will overwork these scones, making them tough and dry. As soon the dough comes together in a cohesive ball, you should stop working the dough.

Finally, because the liquid in these scones is so slow to be absorbed, I like to give the scones a brief rest/chill in the refrigerator before baking them. This rest will allow the liquid to be more evenly absorbed, the developed gluten to relax and the butter to firm up. The finished scones will be more tender as a result.

I'm sorry to be so late posting this recipe, but I hope that there will be some bakers out there who, like me, are still in the mood for pumpkin baked goods. But if you are not among them, that's ok, there's always next year.

Pumpkin & Cranberry Scones

2 c. all-purpose flour (230 grams)
1 T. baking powder
6 T. Sugar
3/4 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. nutmeg
4 T. Unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
3/4 c. dried cranberries
6 T. pumpkin purée (95 grams)
2/3 c. heavy cream, plus more for brushing the formed scones
Turbinado Sugar

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and spices. Using your fingers, or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the dry mixture. Add the dried cranberries.

Whisk together the heavy cream and the pumpkin. Slowly stir the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula while gradually pouring in the cream-pumpkin mixture, continuing to stir until a soft, very shaggy dough is formed.

If necessary, add more cream to help the dough come together. But be careful, the dough will go from looking too dry to being too wet to handle very quickly. It is better to err on the side of too dry.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 3 or 4 times, just to bring the dough together into a soft ball. Divide the ball of dough into two pieces. Use your hands to press each ball of dough into a disc that is 1-inch thick. With a sharp, floured knife, cut each disc into 6 wedges

and place the wedges an inch or so apart on an un-greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush each scone with some cream and sprinkle generously with the raw sugar.

The scones may be baked immediately, but they are more tender and will be more well-shaped if chilled for 30 to 60 minutes before baking. This helps any gluten formed to relax and also firms up the butter.

Bake in the upper third of a preheated 425°oven until golden brown and springy to the touch—about 12 to 15 minutes.

Makes 12 small scones.


Notes & Variations:  

• For a larger scones, form all the dough into a single ball and pat out into a 1-inch thick round.  Cut each round into 8 wedges.
• If your oven has very strong bottom heat, either bake these in the upper third of the oven…or use and insulated baking pan (or two pans stacked together).  
• To work ahead...or simply have the option to bake one or two at a time...mix and form the scones, then place the pan in the freezer until the scones are frozen solid.  Transfer to freezer bags.  To bake, place the scone(s) on an appropriate-sized baking sheet and bake in a preheated 375-degree oven until golden brown and springy to the touch...about 25 minutes.  The frozen, unbaked scones will keep in the freezer for 6 weeks.
• Instead of all dried cranberries, use 1/4 c. each dried cranberries, chopped toasted pecans, and white chocolate chips

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A Minor Kitchen Disaster, a Wayward Cat and Spicy Roasted Sweet Potatoes

I had intended to post my recipe for pumpkin-cranberry scones today, but when I mixed up the dough, I forgot to add the baking powder. Since I didn't discover my mistake until the scones were in the oven, they were a complete loss. A picture of them as they whirled down the disposal might have been an entertaining addition to my post, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Last night, instead of mixing up the dry ingredients for my scones before I went to bed (as I frequently do—it saves quite a bit of time in the morning), I should have probably just gone on to bed. I was exhausted. Like most chefs, I am almost always tired from Thanksgiving through New Years. But in addition to the normal work-related fatigue, I was tired because I had been up for several hours the previous night worrying about my cat.

Born feral, his independent habits have caused me many sleepless nights. But recently his desire to be out gallivanting while the temperature is below freezing has diminished. Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise to me that he would suddenly feel the need to spend the night out after several days in, but it was. I went to bed late, slept fitfully and woke up at hourly intervals to check to see if he had turned up. He finally did. He came inside a bit hesitantly and then woke me up an hour and a half later to be let back out.... His sleep the next day was deep. Unfortunately, my schedule wouldn't allow me to share in the luxury of taking an all day nap.

Since everyone is tired and rushed this time of year, I thought I would use this space today to share a simple roasted sweet potato side dish that can be incorporated easily into a busy schedule. It is tasty, nutritious, and so easy that it doesn't require a recipe (or a lengthy blog post). The reason it is worth writing about at all is that sweet potatoes can be a bit tricky to roast because of their high sugar and moisture content.

In the past, I have roasted sweet potatoes at relatively high temperatures (425° or so) in an effort to make them crisp.  It never seemed to work very well.  When roasted at the higher temperatures appropriate for roasting most root vegetables, sweet potatoes tend to darken quickly and the exterior tends to get tough rather than crispy.   It is only recently that I have discovered that they truly roast best around 375° (or even 350°).   At lower temperatures, they will take longer (45 minutes to an hour), but when they are cooked through, the exterior will be a light golden brown. They may or may not be crispy, but either way their interior will be soft and sweet.

Olive oil, salt and pepper alone would be sufficient seasoning, but I think the sweet potatoes are especially good with the addition of some spices. My favorite combination is paprika and cumin. Sweet potatoes are also good with ground dried chili, fennel and coriander. It isn't even necessary to measure the spices—when you toss them with the olive oil and salt & pepper, simply add spices of your choice in combinations and quantities that suit your whim.

To obtain uniformly sized pieces from a vegetable that tends to be varied in size, I cut the sweet potato first lengthwise into halves or quarters and then cut these pieces crosswise into 1/2- to 3/4-inch slices. This creates nice stout chunks that can be eaten with a fork or picked up with your fingers. We have been enjoying them as a sort of "oven fry" to accompany hamburgers. I'm sure they would be equally good with chicken or pork. However you choose to enjoy them, I hope that you will be pleasantly surprised at how something so very easy can be so good.



Ingredients and baking dish ready to go







Seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika & cumin





Spread in a snug single layer in a baking dish





The finished product--tender, golden & sweet



Dog's Dinner

When I was in cooking school in England and one of the chefs wanted you to know that you had presented them with something that was truly awful, they might have told you that it looked like "dog's dinner" (or maybe it was dog's breakfast...it has been a while....). Of course the kiss of death would have been that it tasted like dog's dinner.

I probably never actually heard one of our chefs say this to someone—we had a pretty nice and encouraging bunch of chefs at school.  The harsh world of the professional restaurant kitchen is a more likely place to come across such a phrase.  When you think about it, comparing the efforts of a budding chef to dog's dinner is a fairly strong insult. I mean, I don't know about your dog, but my dog eats some pretty disgusting things. I happen to have a beagle, and while I do think that beagles are the garbage collectors of the canine world, even a picky dog eats stuff that isn't all that appealing.

Morning walks with my dog are generally a contest between the two of us. Can she grab that half eaten hamburger before I see it? Can I wrestle the abandoned, and now rotten, hard cooked egg out of her jaws?  In the late winter and into spring her snack of choice is acorns. There are so many of them that I end up getting a sore shoulder from pulling on the leash as she races around behind me, snout to the ground like a vacuum cleaner, attempting to eat them all, every day. I recall reading in Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire that acorns are so bitter that they are nearly inedible. She goes after them as if they were ambrosia.

This time of year her food of choice is the locust. (Isn't that cool?—my dog eats seasonally too.)  She is driven to distraction by their buzzing. And since they are pretty large, they make a substantial snack. I think she is gaining weight. She goes after bumble bees too, but there aren't as many of them around. We have had a bumper crop of locusts this year. 

Her desire for these creatures is a mystery to me. Can they really taste that good? Or is it some other sensory kind of pleasure? A good friend of mine says her dog likes them too.  She has conjectured that locusts and bumble bees must be for a dog what a jalapeño popper is for a human. (Although, wanting to eat a jalapeño popper is a bit of a mystery to me too.)

Ever since the locusts have come into season, my dog is so excited to go for a walk. This has made me pretty happy.  She is getting older and I would have expected her to be less inclined to go for walks...and that the walks we went on would be shorter. Instead, as I lace up my shoes, she sits at the front door quivering with anticipation of the banquet to come. All through our recent heat wave, when even a younger dog might have been expected to drag a bit on a long walk, she has impatiently pulled me along, always on the hunt for the next locust. In the evenings she sits at the back door waiting to be let out into the yard to feast some more.

For people who read my blog to find recipes and cooking tips, I hope you don't mind today's post.  I wanted to take a moment to celebrate my dog and share some of the laughter and happiness that is added to my life by the companionship of a very special beagle. I love my dog.

But since this is a cooking blog, and I titled my post "Dog's Dinner", I should state the obvious—when I cook I am always striving to produce something that would never be compared to dog's dinner. But I also have to say that if the food that I prepare gives my family and friends even a fraction of the pleasure that my dog obviously feels when she has gotten a hold of something she considers to be a particular delicacy, then whatever I have prepared will have been a success—because to bring pleasure and joy is the best reason to cook.