Quest for the Perfect Scone

I've pursued the perfect scone a number of times within the past year. I'll admit, I'm a little obsessed with perfecting the English biscuit, but there's only so much failure I can take. I suppose you can't call my previous attempts failures so much as near misses. Well, here's another for the books.

The thing is: I know inspired crisp-soft scones can be made. I've eaten them. When I worked at Crane Coffee, they sold a triangular cinnamon scone that had little chunks of cinnamon much the same way a chocolate-chip cookie is littered with semi-sweet morsels. Crane's scones were solid, dry and crumbled apart when you broke them. They also came premade in a pickle barrel.

Then recently while I was in Boston, a friend (Liz) and I stopped by the cafe in the Boston Public Library. Lo and behold, not only does the library channel the spirits of our nation's founding fathers but also turns out scones that are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and just barely sweet.

Inspired by the holiday season and recent scone perfection, I made pumpkin scones, tweaked from a sweet potato biscuit recipe. The consistency of the scones turned out more chewy than soft and it was just shy of sweet enough. (I've suggested small changes to the recipe below, chiefly adding more butter, substituting buttermilk or cream for regular milk and adding a bit more sugar.)

Rolling out and kneading this dough was such great fun. I made a mess only of myself and not the entire kitchen--flour all over my shirt. And when I was getting ready for bed I noticed two streaks of flour on each of my cheeks--just the sort of thing I wish would happen in a romantic scenario (like in the movies). Except this is real life (and my real life no less) and that sort of thing only happens when no one can appreciate it or when the absolute wrong person is there to clean you up. *sigh*

Pumpkin Scones:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup butter
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup buttermilk or cream
1/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder and soda, salt and spices. Cut butter into 1/4-inch cubes and blend into dry mixture with a pastry blender until it forms small crumbs. In a small bowl, combine pumpkin puree, cream and sugar. Pour wet mixture into the dry mixture. Stir until the dough forms a uniform consistency. Turn dough out on a floured surface and knead for several strokes (this version of scones were the easiest ever to knead--before they were always too wet and sticky). Roll dough until it's 1/2-inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter (just bought one!), cut out the scones and arrange on a baking tray. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.

Pumpkin Bars

I was in rare form last night. Or these days, perhaps it's not so rare. I've been extra busy this month with going out of town three weekends in a row on top of all the other stuff--and I hate it. But I choose it; it's all on me. I have a serious problem saying no to people. And the crazy thing is: The less I know/love you, the more likely I am to do whatever you want. It is a lose-lose situation, wherein the people I love most (i.e. family and close friends) get the shaft. I am incredibly annoyed at myself at this moment, thinking of all the times I choose to please others over myself. Is there a group and a 12-step program for people like me?

So yesterday turned out to be frantic when I wanted it to be chill. I ran late for everything, which I hate. When I finally got around to making pumpkin bars for a work potluck, it was destined distaster. There I was, in the kitchen, throwing things into the largest bowl I could find. I discover we have no cooking oil, when I swear we had it in the old place. But genius of genius, I just so happen to have applesauce ready for an occasion such as this. But pumpkin is splattering all over the countertops and on my clothing, which was already covered in splotches of curry sauce from dinner at Mother India. I try to pull out one square of paper towel, and the entire roll comes loose. I end up having too much batter for a 15x10x1-inch jelly roll tray, so I pour the remainder onto another baking sheet, but there's not enough. So I scoop the batter out and plop it into a muffin tin.

Then comes the frosting, which got stuck in every crevice of the mixer. Why are there so many crevices in mixers--they should make them crevice-free! I ended up having to frost the whole thing before work and was late--again, I hate being late. And all I can think about is coming home from work tonight, making some soup and sitting on the couch, beer in hand. But what is actually going to happen is I go straight to dinner and drinks with friends. Why? Because of my conflicting desires to be with people and to be alone. It's a strange phenomenon that allows me to either make the best of any situation or the worst.

Pumpkin Bars: from Food Network
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
1 cup applesauce (or canola/corn/vegetable oil)
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

For Frosting:
1 8-ounce package cheese cheese (not light)
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, blend eggs, sugar, pumpkin and applesauce with a mixer. In a separate bowl (I actually did it in one bowl--my one mess-saving step), combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Incorporate into batter using mixer. Pour batter into a 15x10x1-inch baking sheet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

For frosting, in a medium bowl, combine softened butter and cream cheese using a mixer. Work in the sifted powdered sugar (obviously I did not sift the sugar) with the mixer. Finish by blending in the vanilla.

Pumpkin Quiche - Success!

Something fantastic happened in my kitchen on a cold winter night last week. Something new was made, something that may have never been done before (at least not the way I did it). But let me start at the beginning. I wanted to make these adorable peach hand pies. But as peaches (or almost any fruit) aren't in season, I decided to substitute pumpkin custard. I looked up a few custard recipes online and in my Better Homes cookbook and came up with something I thought might work. The key word here is thought. No, that's not true. Before I even started I told Megan that it was going to be a fiasco.

You know my history with pie crust. Well this time, it was easy. Seriously. I read Smitten Kitchen's encouraging directions on crusts, and even though there were a few moments when I thought all would be lost, it turned out fine (as you can see below).

The real problems came when I realized my custard was too runny to lie flat in the hand pie (sort of like a jelly- or custard-filled doughnut). Shit. OK, I improvise. What if I add more of the canned pumpkin? That could thicken it. Ummm, nope. I score through the pages of my Better Homes cookbook. Corn starch! I dumped a load on top of the orangey mixture. Then rethought and scooped the powder out of the soupy mixture. I even tried mixing it on high, hoping either the eggs or the cream would thicken--you know like whipped cream or my favorite French silk pie. After five minutes of straight up whipping the "pumpkin custard," I was out of ideas. Until, stroke of genius, I recalled the muffin tray I had just bought. I lined the muffin tray with my tart dough and filled the cups with my "custard." Who says you need tart trays when everything you own is non-stick? After 22 minutes in the oven, these babies slid right out.

And they were good. The crust was flaky and salty. The filling was creamy but not too sweet. To be honest, because of the ridiculous amount of eggs in this recipe my pumpkin-hand-pies were more like pumpkin quiches, a dish I'm sure some Frenchie came up with a millenia ago. And check out the kitchen: (biggest mess ever--there was custard filling on the walls, yikes)

Tart Crust: 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 16 tablespoons (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces 1/2 cup sour cream 4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 1/2 cup ice water Apparently the key to good pie crust is keeping everything cold, so cold butter and ice water. Smitten Kitchen even recommends throwing the bowls in the fridge or freezer (just don't forget about them like I did). Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, add butter pieces and mix with pastry blender until it is coarsely blended. Put bowl in the freezer. In a separate bowl, mix sour cream, lemon juice and ice water with whisk. Remove dry mixture from freezer and pour half of liquid into it and mix with your fingers until liquid has been absorbed. Add the remainder of the liquid and continue to blend with your fingers. (Note: my mixture seemed to be very dry and lumpy. This turned out to not be a big deal once I rolled the dough out.) Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or freeze for up to one month. To begin rolling dough, remove half of the cold dough from the fridge. With a lot of flour, roll the dough out onto a smooth surface. Using a four-inch biscuit cutter or a four-inch Starbucks mug with the skyline of New York on it to cut out circles from the dough (you can adjust the size). Place dough into either a tart pan or the wells of muffin trays. If you think your dough may stick to the sides, rub butter on the side of the trays to grease it up. K, now we move on to the filling. Pumpkin Filling: 5 eggs 3/4 cup cream (to lighten it up you could use half and half or milk) 1/2 cup sugar 1 15-ounce can pumpkin 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon nutmeg Add the ingredients to a large mixing bowl and blend until the consistency is smooth (and a bit runny). Easy, right. Add about 2 tablespoons of the pumpkin mixture to each well of the muffin tray. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, until tart crust is slightly browned and a toothpick pulls out clean.