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.
Hi Lisa! For this recipe should you use active or discard sourdough starter? Thanks!
Active.
Is there a reason these roll out to a 12” diameter instead of the 8” in your other scone recipe? Just wondering if I could do a smaller circle
You could make them smaller!
Hi Lisa. How did you figure out the nutrition info? (Calories, fat, protein…). Thanks
These are amazing! We topped ours with a “clotted cream” (not real clotted cream but a quick version 😅) and it was awesome! 10/10 totally recommend!
I am going to make these tomorrow. I will have my first discard tomorrow. I have everything on hand except the cream.could I substitute with milk or half and half?
That should work okay. Keep in mind heavy cream has more fat, though, so that could have a slight affect on your final product. This article is helpful for heavy cream replacements: https://www.allrecipes.com/article/heavy-cream-substitutes/
Half and half would be better.
These were absolutely delicious! So perfect for this fall season. Im going to be making these a lot. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed them!
Thanks much for this recipe. They were the best scones I’ve ever made. I kept everything cold. I froze the butter, then grated it in. I added an egg because mine were small. I left the dough a bit wetter. I also used dried Cranberries instead of chocolate chips. So yummy!
Turned out delicious. Ngl I threw everything in food processor at once and did not freeze the butter.
Hello Lisa,
thank you for your wonderful recipes! I am very happy with my first self-made sourdough.
What spices are in your pumpkin spice? Since I live in Germany, I do not get this mixture.
Lots of love from the Black Forest!
It’s a blend of warm spices. Here is a homemade recipe that may help you out: https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a78588/how-to-make-pumpkin-pie-spice/ I am sure there are others as well if you’d like to experiment with what you like best.
Hi How do you make sour dough starter?
You can find that here: https://www.farmhouseonboone.com/make-sourdough-starter-scratch
Anyone tried this with an egg substitute? Thinking maybe flax?