Whole Wheat Pumpkin Scones

Remember what I said in my last post about baking more with whole wheat? Well, I've done it. (or at least started it). It is quite funny really... I woke up on the first and decided to be sweet and cook something for breakfast. I'm not a super huge eggs fan so I defaulted to baked goods. I rummaged through the cabinets to see what I had to work with. I usually know these things, but hey, I was gone for the holiday and forgot.

I found I had a small amount of all purpose flour and a large amount of self-rising flour (if any of you can tell me what to do with this I'm ready relieve space in my tiny cabinets). Sitting next to these was my hardly-used whole wheat flour bag. It looked so sad, all full, fat, and neglected. It's true. I don't use whole wheat flour much. I should but I don't. In order to make this little bag of flour happy I searched for something to make with pumpkin that I needed to use. I found a scone recipe and decided to give it a go. After all, the recipe swore you couldn't tell they were made of whole wheat. Skeptical, I started the scone process. I forgot to check for butter in my wasteland of a fridge and turned up empty. I thought about attempting the Earth Balance spread but decided that stuff was too expensive to waste (just in case) and adapted the recipe using shortening. At the time, I was thinking... "a scone is like a biscuit - so I could probably substitute shortening for butter... they just won't taste as good." So I went for it and cut in shortening instead of butter. Mixed everything as required and sliced 8 scones. Baked 'em up fairly quick and just in time for M to arrive in the kitchen. (He slept in - and by arrived in the kitchen, I mean walked 10 steps from the bedroom to see what smelled good).

I was on my second cup of tea and decided to snap a few pictures while I had good light. All this time wondering if they were going to taste like cardboard or not. And oh the wait was finally over....

Eh, I guess they were fine. A little bland and lacking strong pumpkin flavor, we decided to eat them like the British and topped them with a slab of butter. If we only had clotted cream... At least I remembered to add a big handful of chocolate chips which helped some. I don't think I will make these again, and to save you I'm not posting the recipe here. I'll definitely find some more whole wheat recipes but from a trusted source. So all of you trusted sources out there - send me your favorite whole wheat baked good recipe! Don't worry either, I'm not at all distressed that the first recipe of the year was not a huge success. It just means I have a lot more room to improve.