Diet, food, food allergy, recipe, Traditional Chinese Medicine

Pumpkin scones: gluten and dairy free

pumpkin sconesI have fond memories of eating Mum’s pumpkin scones fresh from the oven when I was a child. Homemade pumpkin scones, rock cakes and ANZAC biscuits were our sweet snack staples.

I picked up a beautifully sweet piece of pumpkin on the weekend and it reminded me of those pumpkin scones Mum used to make. It inspired me to pull out her old recipe and modify it a little in terms of sugars, fats and flours.

From a Chinese medicine point of view, pumpkin is a highly valued Earth element food. It builds up our Spleen Qi (digestive energy) and helps to drain dampness. Food that are naturally occurring in shades of oranges and yellow are classed as Earth element foods. For this reason pumpkin soup is valued as one of the best meals for a struggling digestive system. Pumpkin is warm-neutral-cooling in thermal nature dependent on how its cooked and what its colour is: the paler or greener a pumpkin is the more cooling it will be.

I like to make these scones with dark yellow/orange pumpkin flesh. I’ve also used brown rice flour (more fibre) with ground cinnamon and ginger for flavouring which add a little warm energy to the recipe and to aid digestion. I’ve also substituted the butter 1:1 for coconut oil and used a stevia/sugar mix to reduce the level of sugar. This is also an incredibly quick and easy recipe to make.

Pumpkin Scones recipe


  • 60g coconut oil (in a soft solid form)
  • 1/4 cup sugar stevia blend (or 1/2 cup regular sugar). This can be reduced if you have a particularly sweet pumpkin.
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup steamed, mashed and cooled pumpkin
  • 2 cups brown rice flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
  • 1/2 teaspoon ginger, ground


  1. Preheat oven to 230ºC.
  2. Grease two baking trays.
  3. Cream coconut oil and sugar.
  4. Add egg and beat in.
  5. Mix in pumpkin, flour and spices until well combined.
  6. Drop (or roll) rounded, heaped dessertspoon fulls of mixture onto prepared trays.
  7. Bake for 15 minutes of until golden.
  8. Best served warm with jam.

Makes 16.
