I don't know why I don't bake scones more often. Oh yeah, that's because I suck at baking - it's preceise, exact, and scientific.

But scones are different. They're not what I would necessarily label as "easy," but scones certainly don't require as much work as I would expect from something that tastes so good - crisp on the outside, crumbly on the inside. Pumpkin scones also have that lightly spicy flavor from cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg. I added dried cranberries at the last minute (a lot seems to happenin the last minute these days), which added some sweetness, tang and chewiness, but if you don't have them, who cares. They sort of made the scones look like Jack-O-lanterns, anyway.

Pumpkin Cranberry Scones

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, sift together 1½ cups all purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp each of cloves, ginger and nutmeg, and 2 Tbsp sugar.

Stir ¼ c. pumpkin puree with 1 cup heavy cream. Pour pumpkin/cream mixture into flour mixture and stir slowly. (No butter! I know! I didn't think it would work either, but it did!)

Gently fold the mixture with your hands in the bowl until all the dry ingredients are moistened and the mixture starts to come together. The scone dough is very very sticky.

Shape dough into small disks (about the sie of a hockey puck) or rounded triangles, place on greased cookie sheet, and add dried cranberries to top.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until bottom edges are browned. You can also stick a toothpick into the center to see if it comes out clean, but then you'll have a scone with a hole in it.