Pumpkin Scones Version II

Weekly meetings = weekly baking excuse. I bought some whipping cream to go with a previous cake I made, but no one was interested at the time, so the cream has been sitting in my fridge. Every time I open the door, it says "make scones, make scooooones" in a haunting voice. I also happened to have some pumpkin sitting in my fridge from another dessert I made, a vegan pumpkin gingerbread loaf which I will soon post about as it is my new go-to recipe for a pumpkin loaf. Ergo, I searched the internet far and wide, scrolling through as many as 5 pages worth of google search responses to find "the recipe" that uses whipping cream and pumpkin in the dough. There are surprisingly few recipes that do. But I came across a little gem from tastykitchen, that I wanted to share with you in case you too are someday being taunted by whipping cream from your fridge and are simultaneously at your wit's end about how to use more canned pumpkin.

PS Not surprisingly, there are no photos. I accept that this is an inferior blog with little visual evidence of my culinary adventures and I will never win a blog award. But it makes me happy. These scones were gone in less than 24 hours. Note they are not a sweet scone at all, so a little spiced frosting or maple syrup frosting would not go amiss for those of us with a needy sweet tooth.

Pumpkin Scones
 2 c. flour
1/3 c. tightly packed brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger 
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp lemon zest, optional (I included it)
1/2 c. butter, salted (if you use unsalted, boost the added salt to 1/2 tsp)
1/2 c. canned pumpkin (not pie filling!)
1/2 c. whipping cream

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix dry ingredients together well, stir in lemon zest.
3. If the butter is frozen, you can grate it into the dry ingredients. If it's fridge temperature, cut it into small chunks and then use a pastry cutter or fork to cut it into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with a few pea-sized chunks of butter.
4. Beat the whipping cream and pumpkin together until smooth.
5. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently together 3-4 times until the dough comes together. (it may still be a bit crumbly).
6. Press into a circle about 1" thick. Cut into 8 wedges. Bake for ~25 minutes until golden.