The night after we got home from Pennsylvania, I was feeling the baking urge again. The baking urge means that I want to make something I’ve never made before. And that always brings me to my Pinterest board where I pin healthy recipes I want to try. And THAT is where I found Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones.
I knew they wouldn’t be as good as the scones I made with Barb in Pennsylvania, but I also thought they looked like something I could eat without having to break my Weight Watchers bank with each bite. (Worth it, though, those buttery sugary scones.) And they sounded sorta delicious.
They turned out to be very easy and fun to make.
Sifting the dry ingredients was the first step. Whole wheat white flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon (a heaping teaspoon, not the 1/4 teaspoon specified in the recipe).
The next few ingredients were mixed in one at a time: pumpkin, yogurt (I had low fat vanilla in the fridge), and 2 tablespoons of butter. Pumpkin was first.
Then the yogurt and the butter. But then the mixing started getting difficult.
I’m sure it’s my fault. I didn’t leave the butter out before I started baking, I softened it in the microwave, and I could have done a better job. I also could have tried something fun I just read about on a blog that had great tips for cooking with kids; the mom said that she had them use the “armpit method” for warming up better. It’s a good idea, and reminded me of Dad’s trick for softening up pats of butter in restaurants, which is just to cup it in your palms and hold it there for a minute or so.
But I didn’t use the armpit method, and when I tried mixing the butter evenly into the batter with my otherwise completely trusty spatula, it didn’t work. So I gave my hands another scrub, rolled up my sleeves, and did it by hand.
That worked great, and was fun too.
Once I had the dough in a ball, I realized that the instructions did not mention adding the chocolate chips. So I added them. I used fewer than the recipe suggested.
And created a giant, tasty-looking dough ball.
Honestly, it may have been the picture of the dough ball in the original recipe that drew me to this particular treat in the first place.
I flattened it out into a circle, sprinkled it with turbinado sugar, and cut it into 8 pieces.
And when I baked it, it puffed up like real scones! (I suppose that’s because they WERE real scones, even without all that butter.)
I tasted them that night, and again in the morning. They weren’t anywhere near as flaky as the ones we made at Mussers’ B&B, they were more bread-like, and they weren’t sweet in themselves but the chocolate chips did a great job of adding just the right touch. The sugar helped in that department as well.
My overall assessment: great recipe to play with. I think next time I will add more cinnamon, some nutmeg, swap out the chocolate chips for cinnamon chips, and make sure the butter is softer so that when I get to the point of mixing it by hand, I don’t have to do it for as long, that might lighten up the texture a wee bit.
That said, I really liked these as is, and so did my co-workers. They were a hit. Will definitely make these again, I think they’d also be great on a cool Fall morning with some fresh fruit on the side.
Great find, this one.
PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP SCONES RECIPE (original)
My version of Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Scones — updated 10/28/13, and made with cinnamon chips
ingredients:
2/3 + 1/4 cup whole wheat white flour
1/3 + 1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup cane sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
1/3 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup low fat vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/4 cup cinnamon chips
cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling
directions:
Heat oven to 425 and grease or spray a cookie sheet. (Don’t use parchment paper; I tried this once and it everything burned on the bottom.)
Whisk together the flour, wheat germ, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
In the same bowl, add in the pumpkin, yogurt, butter, and vanilla. Mix well. I found it best to mix with my hands to make sure the butter gets evenly distributed.
Fold in the cinnamon chips.
Shape the dough into a large ball and place on the cookie sheet, then flatten into a circle 1/4 – 1/2 inches thick. Cut into eight even slices, like a pizza.
Sprinkle cinnamon sugar across the top. (I bought a cinnamon-sugar grinder at Trader Joe’s, but you can just mix some cinnamon with any sugar. Best is to use something with larger crystals, like demerera or turbinado.)
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges start to brown.
Eat!
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