Once upon a time there was this chick who wanted to be a rockstar – then, like, 12 other independent, badass and remarkably hipster occupations – and realized at 25 she really could write and cook to support herself.

She managed to get the stars to align right – by having nothing to do with them and completely, totally, 100% falling into luck and opportunity – and now gets paid (usually, and never on time) to put words on paper in distinct patterns that imply importance and play with puns.

Which, using our math, we can tell is half of the write-and-cook equation. And really good alliteration.

Indeed, the former aspiring rockstar sought said writing job as an immediate means to an end in cash monies, so as to be able to pay for culinary school, a kitchen management degree and the pride that will come with finally finishing the fancy degree she left with six credits left to go.

Lord, I cannot maintain the third person any longer. Pretension starts to itch after awhile.

What I’m saying here is: I cook. I bake. I sauté. I’ve even flambéed.

Yes, it’s awesome.

And according to Twitter, Facebook and even some of y’all in the real world, you want my recipes.

I’m very good at following direct instructions, people.

So if it works, Sunday night recipe posts will become a regular thing. Which means you must provide feedback. Cough, hint, wink and nudge.

I will give you the recipe as it was given to me, along with, of course, my commentary, snark and suggestions. Get. Excited.

Oh, and I would tell you where I got the recipe, except I can’t remember. But it’s been stuck to my fridge for long enough to get all wrinkly and used looking, so I’mma go with “somewhere on the internet.” Shut up.

pumpkin scones

ingredients:

for scones:

1 cup all-purpose flour[1]
1 cup cake flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg[2]
¼ teaspoon ground allspice[3]
¼ teaspoon ground ginger

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
1/3 cup pumpkin puree[4]
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
6 tablespoons brown sugar[5]
1 teaspoon vanilla

for glaze:[6]

¼ cup milk
½ cup confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

• Preheat oven to 425°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. I prefer jellyroll pans and trim the parchment to fit. Otherwise, the overhanging paper burn and smoke up the kitchen. Won’t affect the scones, but is annoying.

• Cut the butter into small pieces and return butter to refrigerator.

• In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, salt and spices; whisk together well. Place bowl in refrigerator or freezer.

• In another medium bowl, combine pumpkin, cream, sugar and vanilla; whisk together well.

• Take dry-mix bowl and butter out; combine. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or knives. When butter pieces are smaller than peas, use your fingers to continue blending until the entire mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Here the recipe offers you the option of adding a ½ cup of raisins. Please don’t, no matter how much you like raisins. That’s a TERRIBLE idea and you will never be forgiven.

• Take out the liquid mixture and pour into the dry-mix bowl all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon until everything is just moistened. The dough will be very crumbly; this is as it should be.

• Turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and push the pile of dough together with your hands. It should stick together fairly well. Knead just a few times to bring it all together. Don’t knead too much or the dough will get too sticky. There are two schools of thought here. Traditional scones are crumbly but moist. By over-kneading or over “processing” the dough, you change the texture and consistency of the scones. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if one is making her 3^rd and 4^th batches of scones in a week at 10:30 pm after cooking all day and doubles the recipe, forgetting to double the flour, and then has to add an extra two cups of flour at the end after the liquid-dry-combining step and then must knead the dough into submission, thereby over-kneading, one still ends up with very tasty, albeit smoother, scones of the less-than-crumbly variety. You know, if that happened. Hypothetically. To one of YOU.

• Pat the dough into a rough circle, about an inch thick. Cut it into triangles as you would a pie, into 8 equal pieces.

• Place triangles onto the baking sheet so they are not touching. They will expand slightly, but not much. Bake for about 15 minutes. They should be light brown on the bottom; the tops will darken as they cool.

• Remove from hot baking sheet to a rack placed over another sheet or plate.

• Once they’re out of the oven, but still hot, combine all glaze ingredients in small bowl and whisk together well. You can change the ratios to taste, but keep the sugar quantity at around twice the milk (or more).

• Drizzle the whisked mixture over the hot scones and allow to cool.

• Stuff face.

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[1] I found sifting two cups of all-purpose flour more than adequate. No need to buy or break out the cake flour for this one, if it’s inconvenient or expensive.

[2] For the love of whatever you hold holy, get yourself a fresh nutmeg grinder like this one. They’re also called spice or nut mills. It’s SO worth it. Fresh nutmeg is approximately 837 mazillion times better than pre-ground.

[3] Fresh everything spices are always good, but the rest of these are fine pre-ground.

[4] I found one 15-ounce can of pumpkin made four batches of these. And no, please do not go buy a damn pumpkin and puree the shit yourself. No one who matters will care you used canned pumpkin, and lie your ass off to anyone that does.

[5] I used hard packed tablespoons of dark brown sugar, but that’s just a preference.

[6] The recipe gave two other recipes for glazes and they both suck. So badly, in fact, that I won’t even give ‘em to you. Seriously. Awful.

UPDATE: I completely forgot to tell you that this post was made possible by the one and only @Jenndola, mostly because she bitched about me never getting recipes to her on time, but also because of my ridiculous and undying love for her. SQUEEE, BITCH.