Pumpkin & Rosemary Biscuits

When I say biscuit, its part that and partly scone. Bready and toothsome, deeply savoury and just about the perfect partner with a serving of Bangers & Colcannon or a hearty rooty soup to warm the cockles on a chilly day.

It's autumn, which means that I usually overdose on Pumpkin Spice Latte's. And I'm cool with that. I love those warming spices against comforting blanket of dairy goodness. But what I'm less cool about is why I have never tried to replicate the Pumpkin Spice flavour at home. This recipe remedies that!

A couple of weeks' ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Caitlin Ruth, head chef of Deasy's Harbour Bar and Restaurant for our local radio station, Clonline Radio (listen to the interview here).  This was the second time I had the chance to interview Caitlin, and as before it was a lot of fun - more like having a chat, only that the wine was missing!

Pumpkin & Rosemary Biscuits

When I say biscuit, its part that and partly scone. Bready and toothsome, deeply savoury and just about the perfect partner with a serving of Bangers & Colcannon or a hearty rooty soup to warm the cockles on a chilly day.

Mr Flavour swears he can taste bacon in these biscuits but I assure him there’s not, because there isn’t. Pumpkins and squash have magical properties: they are the chameleon of the food world, able to be sweet and savoury and can evoke buckets of umami. That’s what he was picking up as he scoffed into a freshly baked batch. I hope!

I recommend steaming the squash, rather than roasting and boiling, to reduce moisture intake (boiling) and moisture release (roasting). Steaming retains the pumpkins goodness, natural sweetness and shape. After steaming to perfection, I allow to just sit and air for about 10 minutes. It doesn’t matter if the squash gets cool because it’s going into the dough and then being baked anyway, but its an important step in getting rid of any excess moisture which can impact texture and rise. I like to roughly mash, mostly smooth but with some texture, to add a little bit of bite and interest to the finished scone.

The dough that you made will be quite sticky, so prepare to feel deeply uncomfortable when you’re handling the dough! Also, I can’t legislate for the type of pumpkin or squash you will use – there are so many varieties and each will have a different water content. So just be aware that if you are looking at your dough thinking: this can’t be right, it’s too wet, it probably is so just add a little more flour until such time as you have a dough that you can pick up and handle – but is still quite sticky too!

I use buttermilk for an extra hit of savouryness, but you can of course use normal milk.

Pumpkin & Rosemary Scones

Ingredients (makes 12 – 14 scones using a 6cm cutter)

  • 275g plain flour
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tbsp fresh rosemary finely chopped
  • 60 g butter (chilled and cubed)
  • 125 ml buttermilk (+ a little extra to brush with)
  • 250 g pumpkin/squash, peeled, deseeded, cubed, steamed until tender and mashed/pureed
  • Toasted pumpkin seeds

Method

  • Pre heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius, fan
  • Add the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, nutmeg and rosemary into a bowl.
  • Add the cubes of chilled butter and crumble through to create a breadcrumb texture.
  • Add the buttermilk and mashed/pureed pumpkin and stir everything together to combine well and to create a sticky dough.
  • Flour the works surface and turn out the dough. Knead lightly into a smooth dough and form into a round about 2cm thick.
  • Cut out the dough using a 6cm cutter and place on a lined baking tray. Gather the remaining dough up, and reform to cut out more. Repeat until all the dough has been used up.
  • Brush each scones lightly with some buttermilk and scatter toasted pumpkin seeds on top.
  • Place in the oven and back for about 20-25 minutes until doubled in size, golden and cooked through.
  • Serve up with Bangers and Colcannon, or slather with the Pumpkin Spice and Maple Butter as a delicious mid-day snack.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice & Maple Butter

It’s autumn, which means that I usually overdose on Pumpkin Spice Latte’s. And I’m cool with that. I love those warming spices against comforting blanket of dairy goodness. But what I’m less cool about is why I have never tried to replicate the Pumpkin Spice flavour at home. This recipe remedies that!

October through December is also when I love to indulge in toasted carbs. Pancakes, not crepes but American Style or Drop Scones as they are traditionally known in Ireland, are a firm favourite for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But also toasted Barmbrack – the traditional Irish fruit tea cake that gains popularity in the lead up to Hallowe’en, or Samhain, because of the trinkets stored inside said to bestow good or bad luck on whoever found them hidden amongst the cake. Toasted crumpets, drowning in butter; ditto toast in general and raisin and cinnamon bagels…

American Style Pancakes with Pumpkin Spice and Maple Syrup Butter

All of these things are vastly improved with butter. Vastly improved yet further if that butter is THIS butter: flavoured with the heady notes of Pumpkin Spice and the sweet succulence of maple syrup.

Of course, the irony of Pumpkin Spice is that it doesn’t contain pumpkins or even taste of them. I probably should have looked into the history of that more, but I don’t think it really matters because, ultimately, what’s important is flavour and comfort and this flavoured butter has both of those things in droves!

Pumpkin Spice and Maple Syrup Butter

Word to the wise: using unsalted butter and adding maple syrup to it does make this a soft butter that melts really quickly. I make sure it is well chilled before I use it, so the butter gets a fighting chance of sinking in to whatever you have lashed it on without just dribbling onto the plate and down your chin – although these are both perfectly acceptable too!

Ingredients (makes 1 x 15cm log of butter)

  • 100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp ground clove
  • 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Method

  • Place all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until fully combined.
  • Empty out down the centre of a piece of parchment paper.
  • Wrap the parchment paper over the butter and start to twist the ends of the paper to force the soft butter into a log shape. Keep rolling and twisting until the butter feels compacted together into a tight butter log.
  • Place in the fridge and chill for at least four hours until very firm. If you can’t wait that long, pop it in the freezer for 30 minutes.
  • Slice into disks and serve on top of anything that is warm and deserves this delicious butter!

Enjoy!

Caitlin Ruth’s Baked Squash

A couple of weeks’ ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Caitlin Ruth, head chef of Deasy’s Harbour Bar and Restaurant for our local radio station, Clonline Radio (listen to the interview here).  This was the second time I had the chance to interview Caitlin, and as before it was a lot of fun – more like having a chat, only that the wine was missing!

During our interview, Caitlin mentioned a recipe she made for a vegetarian friend who came for Christmas Dinner one year.  A whole baked squashed, stuffed with loads of yummy things, served up whole and sliced at the table.  I immediately fell in love with the notion of the humble squash being given as glorious a treatment at the turkey itself.

baked-stuffed-squash-2

When I asked for the recipe, I didn’t think Caitlin would actually say yes, but she did.  True to her word, a few days later arrived pictures and the full recipe of how to make her Baked Squash. I’m sharing this recipe with you as I feel now is about the time that there are people out there starting to have a melt down about what to make their vegetarian dinner guest on Christmas Day that isn’t a totally predictable nut roast.  Well, thanks to Caitlin you no longer have to worry – we’ve got you covered!

Continue reading “Caitlin Ruth’s Baked Squash”

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