These sourdough pumpkin scones with chocolate chips are delicious, sweet, and full of flavor. Quickly mix them together for a fast treat, or you can choose to long ferment them for more health benefits.
The tastes of fall are my absolute favorite. Flavors of warm cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and maple are just a few of those favorites.
I love creating new “pumpkin spice” versions of my favorite dishes. Like pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, pumpkin cobbler, pumpkin ice cream… pretty much any dessert can have a pumpkin spice twist, in my opinion!
Scones are no different. For this recipe, I wanted to kick it up a notch and add in real pumpkin puree as well as pumpkin spice. I’m always looking for ways to turn our home grown pumpkin puree into yummy dishes!
Serve these delicious scones with a hot cup of coffee and scrambled eggs for a quick breakfast, or enjoy them fresh out of the oven by themselves for the perfect fall treat. This scone recipe is one of our favorite things to make during the fall season, and I hope you love it as much as we do!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Discard recipe – If you are a sourdough baker, you probably have some extra starter sitting in your fridge. These scones are a great way to use up your extra sourdough discard!
Delicious – These tender scones are absolutely bursting with flavor. The warm pumpkin spice notes and melty chocolate chips make it the perfect crowd pleaser and yummy festive treat.
Quick and Easy – This recipe is far from complicated. Mix up the dough in a few minutes with a handful of simple ingredients. You can bake it right away or it makes a great make ahead dessert to stash in the fridge for later if you choose the long fermented version.
Ingredients
Pumpkin – Regular canned pumpkin puree works absolutely wonderfully in this recipe. However, if you have some fresh pumpkins on hand and want to go the extra mile, try making your own homemade pumpkin puree. We love to do this with the pumpkins we grow in our garden.
Pumpkin Pie Spice – Make your own pumpkin spice from individual spices you have on hand, or pick up a pre-mixed version from the grocery store. This spice mixture usually includes cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
How to Long Ferment Sourdough Scones
The night before you plan to bake them, cut butter into flour using a fork, pastry blender, or food processor.
Add in cream, pumpkin purée, and sourdough starter. Stir until combined. Cover with a tea towel and allow to ferment overnight.
The next day, combine salt, pumpkin spice, sugar, and baking powder in a small bowl and mix together.
Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the fermented mixture. Add eggs and vanilla, then knead to combine. Add chocolate chips.
For best results, chill again before following steps 6 – 8 below.
How To Make Sourdough Pumpkin Scones
Step 1: In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, pumpkin spice, salt, and sugar.
Step 2: Cut in cold butter using a fork or pastry cutter. You can also use a food processor which makes this process super easy.
Step 3: Add in chocolate chips to dry ingredients. This helps coat them in flour so they don’t sink to the bottom.
Step 4: Combine sourdough starter, cream, egg, pumpkin purée and vanilla in a separate bowl.
Step 5: Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined, being careful not to over mix.
Step 6: Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and shape into a 8-9″ circle, and cut into 8 equal slices using a bench scraper or knife.
Step 7: Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the edges start to turn golden brown.
Step 8: Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Serve.
Tips
- The key is to keep the scones very cold before baking so they don’t spread out. I put mine in the freezer for 5-10 minutes before baking. It also helps to use cold ingredients. Frozen butter, cold cream, and cold eggs rather than room temperature ingredients, help to create more flaky scones.
- You can use sourdough discard or active sourdough starter for this recipe. Either will work.
- If you don’t have chocolate chips, no worries, just skip them. They add a sweet and chocolate flavor, but these scones can hold their own without them.
- For this recipe, canned pumpkin purée, homemade pumpkin puree, or even butternut squash purée may be used.
Recipe FAQs
Yes. Scone dough is very delicate and you want to be careful not to over mix. Mix ingredients until just combined to keep the scones light and fluffy.
A small rest can be helpful after mixing the dough together to help the flour to fully hydrate. This followed by a quick chill in fridge or freezer before baking can improve the end result of your scones.
Store the scones wrapped individually in plastic wrap or in an airtight container. Keep at room temperature up to two days or in the fridge up to five days. Freeze up to three months.
More Sourdough Recipes from the Farmhouse
- Sourdough Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- Sourdough Galette With Sage, Leek, And Goat Cheese
- Chocolate And Coconut Sourdough Scones
- Sourdough Strawberry Shortcake
- Sourdough Cherry Cobbler
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love it if you could come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone.
The Best Sourdough Pumpkin Scones with Discard
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen
- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter, discard or active sourdough starter will both work
- 1/4 cup heavy cream, I used 35% heavy cream
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup unsweetened pumpkin purée
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, pumpkin spice, salt, and sugar.
- Cut in cold butter using a fork or pastry cutter. You can also use a food processor which makes this process super easy.
- Add in chocolate chips to dry ingredients. This helps coat them in flour so they don’t sink to the bottom.
- Combine sourdough starter, cream, egg, pumpkin purée and vanilla in a separate bowl.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined, being careful not to over mix.
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and shape into a 8-9″ circle, and cut into 8 equal slices using a bench scraper or knife.
- Bake 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the edges start to turn golden brown.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Serve.
Notes
- The key is to keep the scones very cold before baking so they don’t spread out. I put mine in the freezer for 5-10 minutes before baking. It also helps to use cold ingredients. Frozen butter, cold cream, and cold eggs rather than room temperature ingredients, help to create more flaky scones.
- You can use sourdough discard or active sourdough starter for this recipe. Either will work.
- If you don’t have chocolate chips, no worries, just skip them. They add a sweet and chocolate flavor, but these scones can hold their own.
- Find directions to long ferment these scones in the blog post.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Delicious!! I subbed Einkorn for AP flour and allulose for the sugar and didn’t include chocolate chips. I added 1/2 cup chopped pecans. I made a glaze with a bit of whipping cream, allulose, pumpkin pie spice, and a bit of coconut oil to help thicken it. So good! They would have been even better if I had remembered to include the sourdough starter!! LOL
This is an outstanding recipe. I absolutely love them… But I make plain without chocolate. Plus I did the long fermentation step every time so far. I’ve made them 5 times and they get eaten up quickly here. Thank You Lisa for this GEM 🙂
Hi! I made these with the following substitutions: used fresh pumpkin puree, used evaporated milk instead of cream, and used sweetened dried cranberries instead of chocolate chips. The flavor was great, but even though I used the frozen butter in the food processor, and chilled it 10 minutes before shaping, my dough was very sticky. It still basically worked – they were delicious! Just a little difficult/messy to get onto my baking pan.
I have made these a few times and they are very good. I have substituted mini diced ginger from King Arthur Flour for the chocolate chips and topped with sparkling sugar. Definitely gift or bake sale worthy. Quick to make and delicious.
Sounds like a delicious swap!
These are fantastic! I made them without the chocolate chips and I brushed the tops with cream before baking. Perfect flavor and texture! I will be making these more often than I ought to this holiday season!
OMG these came out so good! The only modification I made was because I had no cream… I used soy milk and flax oil per a online cream substitution list I found. Worked like a charm.
I did do the fermentation method of mixing most of the ingredients the night before.
Yum!
Thank you for sharing!
I made the recipe as written, and these scones turned out perfectly! The texture was ideal for a scone, in my opinion. Not too crumbly. Love a good recipe that starts with frozen butter since my butter is usually frozen. One note: the ingredients call for vanilla, but the instructions fail to mention to mix it in!
If you do a long ferment, how do you ensure the butter is cold for baking? Pop it in the freezer before just like normal, or do you long ferment in the fridge? Thanks!
Should you use active or discard sourdough starter for this recipe?
I have the same question?? For long ferment, it doesn’t say to put in the fridge overnight, but to cover with tea towel? Isn’t the butter supposed to stay cold?