A Tale of Two Scones

When my husband and I were dating, we used to take a trip down to Southern Illinois every fall to enjoy the scenery, the trails, the wine, and for John, some nostalgia from when he went to college down there. The last time we had went was when I was pregnant with Gavyn. This year we started up the tradition again, making it a family trip! Sadly, the B&B we used to stay at closed down. This was a major bummer for us. We had the perfect place - a cabin with a kitchen, grill, lots of space....and in the middle of nowhere. We could have just stayed there and had a great time. I am so sad it is no longer available to us. 

So this year we stayed at Giant City Lodge, which was nice, and offered a great location for what we wanted to do, but there was no kitchen and no breakfast included. So to save some money, I decided to make some scones to bring with for breakfasts. We also grilled some brats in a park the night we got there and had chicken salad sandwiches and lots of snacks for the rest of the trip. 

When I asked my husband what kind of scones I should make - he actually had an idea. Now usually when I ask my husband what he wants to eat, he could not care less. He hates thinking about such things. So when he asked if I could make both apple AND pumpkin scones, I said of course! I didn't want to make two batches though - so I made a base scone and added the two ingredients. I wasn't sure how they would come out because I didn't measure the apples or pumpkin, and generally they are made differently, but these both came out really tasty. 

For my base scone recipe, I started with flour, both whole wheat and white, a little raw sugar, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon in my food processor. I added in cold butter and pulsed it in. This was a double batch - so my mixer was really full!

To that I added eggs, vanilla, and some milk.

Then I took out half my dough and stirred in my chopped apple and because this WAS vacation, little pieces of caramel.

I formed these in the traditional way - rolling it into a circle and then cutting it into 8ths.

Then to the rest of my base I added in a little over half a can of pumpkin puree, and about a half cup of oats.

This batter was a lot wetter due to the pumpkin, so I used an ice cream scoop for these.

Here are the caramel apple scones -  which add yummy gooey caramel just oozing out of them.

And the pumpin scones, which came out a lot better than I thought they would. I topped them with a simple cinnamon glaze.

Then I packed them up for our trip! I waited to make sure they were completely cool and the icing on the pumpkin scones was completely set to avoid a mess. 

We had a great time on our trip!

Basic scones with caramel apple and pumpkin variations:

Basic scone recipe:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) cold butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients together, then add butter with pulse on food processor or with pastry cutter. Add in egg, vanilla, and milk and mix until combined. 

Apple variety:

1 large apple, chopped
10 caramel candies, cut into little pieces

Mix in to base dough, roll out into a circle about 2 inches thick. Cut into 8 triangles and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes.

Pumpkin Variety:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup oats

Mix these into base dough. Scoop with standard ice cream scoop on to cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Top with cinnamon icing

Cinnamon icing:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 T milk, water, or juice

combine, adding more liquid as needed to get the consistency of glaze you wait. You can even make it a frosting by adding more powdered sugar!