Pumpkin Scones

Name: Pumpkin Scones
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Australian
Ingredients: 300g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting; 1 tablespoon castor sugar; ½ teaspoon mixed spice; Pinch salt flakes, crushed; 50g cold butter, diced; 220ml milk, plus extra for brushing; 150g pitted dates, finely chopped

Pumpkin scones are perhaps the most Australian scone of all, made famous by the late 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 pumpkin scones are delicious with butter or crème fraîche and also make an excellent accompaniment to soup. With soup or alone, I love a glass of hazelnutty Sanchez Romate Olvidado amontillado with these pumpkin scones. See video below for my tips on making scones.

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
¼ 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 pumpkin scones warm with crème fraîche or butter.