Pumpkin Butter Scones

A crisp fall day of watching BBC with a friend calls for a cup of maple cream tea and a batch of pumpkin scones. I have a freezer full of pumpkin butter, so I made up a recipe for these little gems. Just the perfect thing for the Call the Midwife Christmas special!

2 cups flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold butter

1/2 cup pumpkin butter (I used this orange bourbon recipe. But you could use this one or this maple one or any of your favorites.)

1 egg

Preheat oven to 400.

Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Cut in cold butter until the flour mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Whisk together pumpkin butter and egg. Add to flour mixture. Stir well to combine.

Knead a few times on a floured surface.

Place on greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Press into a circle about 1/2” thick. Cut into 8 wedges. Separate them slightly from one another.

Bake for 15-17 minutes.

Let cool on rack.

Make a orange spice glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Add orange juice until it becomes a good consistency for drizzling over the top of the cooled scones.

Drizzle over the scones when they are warm but no longer hot. Eat right away or wait until the scones have gotten to room temp and glaze has set.

Pork Chop Loaf

I found a recipe with this name in a 1950s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. They had you make your own stuffing but I was really looking for a super easy dinner to just pop in the oven and making stuffing kind of defeats the idea. But a box of stuffing mix that I dolled-up a bit did the trick!

Brown 4-6 pork chops in large skillet with 1 Tablespoon of oil on med-high heat. Brown both sides.

Prepare stuffing mix according to directions on box. I sautéed up some chopped onion and celery in butter and threw in some dried cranberries, too.

Then alternate pork chops and stuffing in a loaf pan.

Bake at 325 for about 1 hour or until pork chops are 145 degrees.

Serve with applesauce.

Bourbon Orange Pumpkin Butter

This is the darkest and most flavorful of the three pumpkin butters I made. It is my favorite to throw into pancakes or yogurt!

4 cups pumpkin puree (see how to make your own HERE)

1/2 cup apple cider

1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (see my recipe HERE)

1 cup brown sugar

1 Tablespoon bourbon

1 teaspoon orange juice

Combine pumpkin, cider, sugars, and spice in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, still stirring often, until it reduces down and gets thick. You can make it as thin or thick as you want.

Remove from heat and stir in bourbon and orange juice.

Let cool in fridge. Pour into jars or freezer containers. Store in fridge for up to 3 weeks or in freezer up to a year.

Pumpkin Pie Butter

No, it isn’t made of pumpkin pie… But it does have pumpkin pie spice in it and is yummy enough to eat from a spoon!

First you need to make pumpkin puree (you can try this method HERE)

3 cups pumpkin puree

1/4 cup apple cider

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (my recipe HERE)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 Tablespoon orange juice

Combine pumpkin, cider, sugars, and spice in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, still stirring often, until it reduces down and gets thick. You can make it as thin or thick as you want.

Remove from heat and stir in extract and orange juice.

Let cool in fridge. Pour into jars or freezer containers. Store in fridge for up to 3 weeks or in freezer up to a year.

Spiced Cookie Butter

I hadn’t ever heard of cookie butter before, until I saw a recipe for it on-line. But now that I have discovered it and realized I can make it myself, I may have opened a Pandora’s box that I was not prepared for. This stuff is pure evil in a jar! And it is sitting right in my fridge, beckoning me every time I walk by. And I can’t eat just one spoonful! It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t already thinking about what flavor to try next… AHHHHH!!!

6.75 oz of any flavor of plain crispy cookies (I used some plain tea biscuits and some ginger snaps)

4 Tablespoons powdered sugar

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (you could use any spice you like or none at all)

1/4 cup oil (coconut, sweet almond, rice bran…) *I used coconut but it turned into a rock in the fridge. The rice bran was better and I think almond would be nice, too.

3-4 Tablespoons cold water

Place cookies into food processor and pulse until they turn into fine crumbs.

Add sugars, spices and vanilla and pulse until well mixed.

Slowly pour in the oil and mix until well combined.

Then slowly add water (you may not need it all) and pulse until it is sticky but not too thin or wet.

 

   At this point is was still too gritty for me and I wanted my butter to have a smoother texture. So I kept pulsing until the butter was glossy and smooth.

Place in a jar or other airtight container and store in fridge.

You may want to take it out and bring to room temperature before eating. Or if you’re like me, you can just take a spoonful right out of the jar in the fridge every time you walk by… ;o)

Maple Pumpkin Butter

I decided to tackle the pile of pumpkins sitting on the hot tub today!

First step was to get them all baked and pureed. Super easy using this oven method!

Before I knew it, I had 25 cups of pumpkin! Fifteen cups went into the freezer and the other 10 got made into pumpkin butter. I’d never made it before, but from the recipes I saw on-line it didn’t seem too difficult. So, I made it up as I went along and am pretty darn pleased with the results!

spiced bourbon orange, pumpkin pie & maple

My mind is reeling with all kinds of ideas to do with them! If they work, I’ll post them here. But first, the Maple Pumpkin Butter recipe:

3 cups pumpkin puree (see recipe HERE)

1/4 cup apple cider (I used our homemade cider)

1/2 cup brown sugar

4 Tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon maple extract

pinch salt

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Combine pumpkin, cider, sugar and syrup in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, still stirring often, until it reduces down and gets thick. You can make it as thin or thick as you want.

Remove from heat and stir in extracts,, salt and lemon juice.

Let cool in fridge. Pour into jars or freezer containers. Store in fridge for up to 3 weeks or in freezer up to a year.