Cheesy Pumpkin Scones #BreadBakers

Made with cheddar AND Parmesan, these cheesy pumpkin scones are tender inside and toasted golden outside, perfect for breakfast or afternoon tea. 

I’m not a big fan of pumpkin spice all the things like many people get excited for during this season but I do love actual pumpkin. In soup, pasta sauce, gnocchi, muffins and so much more. Big fan.

That’s why when our Bread Baker’s host for today’s event chose “pumpkin” for our theme, I was excited. I bought a beautiful little pumpkin and got ready to bake. 

Cheesy Pumpkin Scones

For my mashed pumpkin, I roasted wedges of pumpkin in their skins with just a light drizzle of olive oil until fork tender. Then I scooped the soft flesh out, mashed it and measured out one level cup. It weighed 255g. 

Ingredients

For the scones:

2 cups or 250g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 cup or 113g cold unsalted butter, cut in little blocks

3 1/2 oz or 100g extra sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

1 oz or 28g Parmesan, coarsely grated 

1 cup or 255g mashed pumpkin (see note above ingredients list)

Optional glaze:

1 tablespoon mashed pumpkin

1 tablespoon milk

Method

Preheat your oven to 425°F or 218°C and prepare a baking sheet lining it with baking parchment or a silicone mat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, salt and cayenne.

Use a pastry blender or a couple of knives to cut the butter into the flour. 

You want little lumps and flecks of butter still showing, not the homogenous sandy texture we want for pastry crust. 

Mix your two cheeses together and set aside a generous handful to use as topping. 

Toss the bigger pile of cheese with the flour mixture.

Add in the pumpkin. 

Fold and fold until the dough is just evenly moistened and holds together. It might look too dry at first, but the pumpkin should have enough moisture. If it truly doesn't, I shall roll my eyes at you but you can add a drizzle of water or milk.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. 

Wet your hands and use them to shape the dough into a 3/4"or 1 cm thick square. The dough won't stick to damp hands. This avoids adding extra flour to the dough which can dry it out.

Cut the square into 9 pieces. As you can see, mine weren’t very even but I’m sure you’ll do better! 

Transfer the scones to your prepared baking pan. 

Mix together the mashed pumpkin and milk to make the glaze. 

Brush onto the scones. If you don’t have any leftover pumpkin, you can brush them with just milk.

Top with the reserved grated cheese.  

Bake in your preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or until puffed up and golden. Turn the baking pan around halfway through for even cooking. 

Serve warm, as is or with butter. These are so cheesy and delicious! We meant to share them with the neighbors but ended up eating them all. I made little ham sandwiches with the bigger ones. SO GOOD.

Enjoy! 

It’s the second Tuesday of the month so that means it’s time for my fellow Bread Bakers and I to share our bakes. Our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm chose “pumpkin” as our theme. Check out all the links below. 

• Food Lust People Love: Cheesy Pumpkin Scones 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Sourdough Pumpkin Bread 
• Karen's Kitchen Stories: Sourdough Pumpkin Rolls 
• A Messy Kitchen: Pumpkin Hazelnut Babka
• Sneha's Recipe: Red Pumpkin Paratha

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin these Cheesy Pumpkin Scones!

.

Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones #BreadBakers

Grated butter and cheese add little pockets of flavor and flakiness to these Guinness Cheddar Scones. They are perfect for breakfast or snack time and go great with soup!

I’ve baked with stout quite a few times and love how much depth and flavor a dark brew adds to any batter or dough. For example, check out my mocha stout brownies, London Porter cake and oatmeal stout loaf, just to name a few. All lovely! 

If there is any product more iconically Irish then Guinness Stout, I don’t know what it would be. Anytime Irish teams are playing in a tournament, ubiquitous Guinness shows up as a sponsor. When our host for this month’s Bread Bakers chose Irish bread as our theme for March, I knew I wanted to use Guinness in the recipe. 

NOTE: Start this recipe far enough in advance of when you've like to serve them to leave plenty of time for freezing the scones before baking. Depending on your freezer, a couple of hours ought to do it. 

Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones

This recipe is adapted from Coley Cooks. It’s been a while since I saved it so the author has updated the post name and the URL and these are now called biscuits, which I find very odd for an Irish recipe. Back when I found it, they were called, quite rightly, Irish scones with a URL to match.  Whatever you call them, bake these. They got four thumbs up from my family!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups or 312g flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 cup or 240ml Guinness, cold

1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, FROZEN, plus 2 tablespoons (28g), melted

7 oz or 200g mature cheddar or extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Method

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

Using a box grater, grate the frozen butter, then quickly transfer it to the flour mixture and use a fork to gently mix and coat all the butter pieces with flour. 

Add the grated cheese and mix to combine, being sure to coat all pieces with flour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the Dijon mustard and Guinness.

Make a well in the center and pour in the beer mixture.

Carefully mix until it forms a shaggy dough.  Do not overmix. 

Dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface, then roll out into a long strip about 7x14 in or 18x36cm.

Fold one side half way up, adding in any loose bits.

Then fold the other side over top, like a letter.

 

Rotate the dough 90 degrees, roll out and repeat the two letter folds again. Rotate again and fold for the final two times.

Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 in or 1 cm thick. Cut the scones out with a cutter and place them on a pan lined with baking parchment.  

Roll the dough out again and cut scones until you run out of dough. As you can see, I got 14 scones out of my dough.

Place the baking pan in the freezer. Freeze till solid or overnight. Once frozen, transfer the scones to a sealed bag. For maximum rising and flakiness, the dough needs to be kept very cold. The beauty of this recipe is that once the scones are frozen, you can bake as many or as few as you’d like. 

Preheat your oven to 400° F or 200°C.

When the oven is preheated, remove the number of scones you’d like to bake from the freezer, and put them on a parchment or silicone-lined pan then put it into the oven immediately.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the scones has risen well and are golden brown, rotating the pan halfway through so they brown evenly.

Brush the tops with the melted butter.

Serve warm with extra butter, if desired. I'll be honest. I only buttered the one you see below. They really don't need it. 

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it’s time for Bread Bakers, always the second Tuesday of the month, and Irish bread is our theme. Check out all the great recipes we are sharing ahead of St. Patrick’s Day below! Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Barmbrack by Magical Ingredients
• Boxty by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Belfast Baps by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Flakey Cheddar Guinness Scones by Food Lust People Love
• Irish Bread Rolls by Sneha’s Recipe
• Irish Soda Farls by Palatable Pastime
• Waterford Blaas by A Messy Kitchen
• Irish Oat Flapjacks by Cook with Renu
• Sourdough Irish Soda Bread by What Smells So Good?

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin these Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones!

.

Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones

These overnight yeasted cheese scones have cheese inside and on top. They make a delightful breakfast or snack or use them as sandwich bread. 

A couple of months ago in this very group, you might recall that we posted recipes from Poland. I made a very tasty potato pie called baba kartoflana in Polish. While I was researching for that recipe, I somehow came across these overnight, yeasted cheese scones from Hungary and made a note for later. 

According to the original author, these are called pogácsa in Hungarian and they are a popular bite-size snack served at the beginning of parties or get-togethers. Makes sense because they would be wonderful accompaniments to cocktails. Pogácsa are always made with a yeast dough. 

Since we aren’t really doing parties these days, I made mine normal scone/biscuit size. They are perfect on their own, especially warm. After eating one scone for breakfast plain, my husband also made sandwiches with a couple for lunch. He highly recommends salami and mustard on these. I think smoked ham would also be delightful. 

Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones

In the original recipe, as mentioned above, a much smaller cookie cutter is used so that the scones are bite-sized. They also have half the cheese. In our house more cheese is always a good thing so I’ve doubled the cheese and put some in the dough and on top. 

Ingredients
2 tablespoons lukewarm milk
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 113g butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, separated into yolk and white
1/3 cup or 75g sour cream
3 1/2 oz or 100g extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated and divided

Method
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm milk. Set aside. 

Whisk the flour and salt together into a large bowl. Add the cubed butter and use a pastry blender to cut it into the flour. 

Add in half of the grated cheese and mix well. 

Make a hollow in the flour and pour in milk/yeast mixture, followed by the egg yolk and sour cream. 

Use a wooden spoon (then a clean hand) to mix the ingredients together. At first it looks too dry but just keep at it and shortly, it comes together into a stiff dough. Knead until smooth. 

Press the dough into a fat disk and cover it with cling film. Chill overnight in the refrigerator. 

The next day, when you are ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator so it can warm up slightly.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone liner and preheat your oven to 428°F or 220°C. Beat the egg white to loosen it, adding a 1/2 teaspoon of water.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about 3/4 in or 2 cm thick. Use a 3 in or 7.5cm cm cookie cutter to cut out the scones.

Briefly knead together any leftover dough and roll it out again to cut more scones. 

Transfer all of the scones to the prepared baking sheet.

Brush the tops with the beaten egg white. 

Then top them with the other half of the grated cheese. 

Bake the scones in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown. Cool them on a wire rack for a few minutes before serving. 

Enjoy! 

Today's Baking Bloggers theme is yeast breads. Check out all the lovely recipes my blogger friends are sharing. Many thanks to our host, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Bagels from Sneha's Recipe
• Connie's Swedish Rye from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Crunchy Herbed Whole Wheat Breadsticks from Cook with Renu
• Crusty No-Knead Oatmeal Bread from Making Miracles
• Hearty Slow Fermented Rustic Bread from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Hveteboller (Norwegian Cardamom Buns) from Tara's Multicultural Table
• Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones from Food Lust People Love
• Pizza Focaccia from Palatable Pastime
• Sourdough Rolls from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

Pin these Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones!

 .