Pumpkin scones are perhaps the most Aussie scone of all, made famous by Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen, wife of a Queensland premier.
Use leftover roast pumpkin if you have some (you’ll need about 1 cup mashed), in which case you may need to add a splash more milk. These pretty orange scones are delicious with butter or crème fraîche and also make an excellent accompaniment to soup.
Makes: 6
Ingredients
- 325g peeled and seeded butternut pumpkin
- 300g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
- pinch salt flakes, crushed
- 50g cold butter, diced
- 1/4 cup milk, plus extra for brushing
- freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
Method
Preheat oven to 240°C.
Place pumpkin in a saucepan of water, bring to the boil, reduce heat to medium and cook for about 15 minutes, until tender.
Tip into a strainer and set aside for a few minutes to steam dry.
Pass through a potato ricer or mash; set aside.
Sift flour into a bowl.
Add salt and butter and use your fingertips to rub butter into the flour until there aren’t any lumps.
Make a well in the centre, add pumpkin, milk and nutmeg and use a pastry scraper or hard spatula to cut it into the flour to form a soft sticky dough.
Turn onto a well-floured bench, dust the top and your hands with flour, and pat the dough into a 3cm-thick round.
Use a 7cm fluted cookie cutter dipped in flour to cut out rounds, placing them close together on a baking paper-lined baking tray.
Gently pat remaining dough together and cut out more rounds.
Brush the tops with milk.
Place in the oven, reduce temperature to 200°C and bake for 20–25 minutes, until well-browned.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool a little.
Serve warm with crème fraîche or butter.
You’ll find a print-friendly version of this recipe here as well as a step-by-step video of how to make classic buttermilk scones.
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Also read: Roberta’s Pommes Dauphinoise
