The pumpkin does two jobs here: it colours and softens the dough, and it lets the scone be shaped rather than cut. Cream cheese is beaten with osmanthus jam and frozen in portions so it survives the bake, and a cube of camembert sits inside as the salty contrast.
British · Baking
Pumpkin Cheese Scones With a Cream Cheese Centre
Pumpkin puree in the dough, a core of cream cheese beaten with osmanthus jam, and a camembert cube hidden inside. Baked to look like little pumpkins.
- Prep30 min
- Cook18 min
- Serves6
- LevelMedium
Ingredients
| 200 g | cake flour |
| 70 g | butter , cold, cubed |
| 80 g | pumpkin puree , well drained |
| 4 g | baking powder |
| 30 g | milk |
| 20 g | caster sugar |
| 1 g | salt |
| 120 g | cream cheese , softened |
| 10 g | osmanthus jam |
| 60 g | camembert , cut into six cubes |
| 2 g | matcha powder , for the stalks |
Method
- Beat the cream cheese with the osmanthus jam until smooth, divide into six and freeze while you make the dough.
- Pulse the flour, butter, baking powder, sugar and salt until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, then add the pumpkin and milk and bring it together.
- Turn the dough out and fold it over itself three times, pressing rather than kneading.
- Flatten each portion, set a frozen cream cheese disc and a camembert cube in the middle, and pinch the dough closed around them.
- Press ridge lines down the sides with the back of a knife and set the scones rounded side up on a lined tray.
- Colour a scrap of dough with matcha and press a small stalk into the top of each one.
- Bake at 175C for 18 minutes, until firm at the sides and dry on the base.
Notes
- Drain the pumpkin puree in a sieve first; wet puree makes a flat scone.
- Freezing the cream cheese keeps the centre from leaking into the dough.
Ratios and technique checked against 辰辰妈dg on Douguo (南瓜奶酪司康). The method here is written by Stellaok and the illustration is ours; no text or photograph from the source is reproduced.