It seems fitting to enjoy pumpkin scones at our traditional symposium morning tea on Sunday, but for many of us Flo Bjelke Peterson casts a long dark shadow over the classic Queensland fare.
In an attempt to disentangle the pumpkin scone she made famous from the matriarch of conservative politics, we’ve done a little research. Putting aside the use of a ‘mix master’ and slight variations in the quantities, Flo’s recipe is almost identical to one that appeared in The Queenslander in 1913. It’s the one we’re sticking with:
3 cups flour, ½ cup of sugar, ½ cup milk, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon carb. soda and 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 egg, 1 cup of cold mashed pumpkin. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add egg, beat well again, then put in pumpkin, which must have all lumps out of it. Next add part of milk, sift in flour, which must have salt, cream of tartar, and soda well mixed through it, then add remainder of milk. Work a little, press out with hands, and bake 10 minutes.
They sound hearty! Thanks @Max Dingle
They sound hearty! Thanks @Max Dingle
Reply a bit late. Shearers Scones
4 cups SR flour, 1/2 Tea sp nutmeg, 2 Des sp butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup currents, 1 cup milk. rub butter into flour, add sugar, nutmeg and currents, add milk & egg.
Bake 12 to 16 minutes hot oven.
What makes a shearers scone @Max Dingle ?
Have just been through Rose Hughes (my mother in law, from her time in Clare Valley and then in Adelaide) handwritten recipes books (approx 1930's to 1950's) overall nine scone recipes, but not one pumpkin. Pumpkin recipes are there as a vegetable, so they were available, but obviously not on the agenda as an ingredient for scones.
The recipes include , cheese scones, date scones, fried scones and shearers scones plus an extremely brief and most imprecise recipe for:
CWA scones - 3 sifts S R Flr, 1/4 Lb butter, 10 cups milk .
An ABC Overnights caller told me she has a 2 ingredient recipe that never fails: 3 cups of self-raising flour and a can of cream of pumpkin soup
Is this the place to confess I've never liked pumpkin scones? (Probably too much canned pumpkin pie filling - I grew up in North America.) Very willing for SAG23 to change all of that. I will have to give this a try! Is roasted butternut squash acceptable?