We harvested the last (fourth) pumpkin recently and finished with a second batch of pumpkin scones. The photos in this blog post were from the first batch. The scones were based on the CWA (Country Women’s Association) recipe.
CWA is an organisation of volunteers around Australia - each state has its own association but there is some collaboration between associations. Country towns like Orange (where we live) have their own ‘branch’, then there are ‘groups’, a collective of branches within an arbitrary ‘region’ and of course ‘state’. mrshill is one of the younger members of the Orange branch. It’s considered by some to be a ‘dying’ institution as the number of new members seems to drop each year. Anyways, people from the city associate baking with the CWA, especially scones, thanks to the famous pop-up tea room they host each year at the Royal Easter show in Sydney. The CWA is much more than scones - its primary purpose is advocacy for local causes they vote on to support. mrshill decided long before our move to Orange that she would join the CWA when we moved to the country. She did and became the Orange branch secretary. In this role she attended the CWA state conference a couple of months ago and came home with a bunch of tea towels featuring the CWA official pumpkin scones recipe.
The first batch of scones were too sweet for our liking so for the second batch, which I made just last week for the end-of-term morning tea at the school where I work, I reduced the amount of sugar by about 40% and used a bit more pumpkin (not necessarily on purpose - more to do with the sizes of the wedges of pumpkin I mashed). They were definitely an improvement on the first batch.
It was sad to finally get through all the pumpkins we accidentally grew. We’ll have to go back to buying them. Sigh.
Mashed pumpkin
On a mat
On a plate