Trader Joe’s Mini Pumpkin Ginger Scones Review

We are deep into Pumpkinpalooza in September for the fall season and new products keep popping up in random places full of pumpkin flavor. New this year at my local Trader Joe’s are these frozen mini Pumpkin and ginger scones. What could go better than a pumpkin spice scone with your Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee spiked with Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Liqueur… Do you think that’s a little over the top?!!? The butternut squash mac is back too…

As the weather cools off and it’s chilly days ahead it’s time to start firing up your ovens and it’s baking season and fall flavors. Who doesn’t love a freshly baked scone on a nice crisp cool Fall morning? (with your Pumpkin Spice Coffee?) I know I do and I know my kids will probably love these pumpkin scones straight from the oven.

Let’s break down these scones… What we have are 12 neatly arranged and pre-cut “mini” scones in the freezer section. Basically, you just heat up the oven and pop these puppies in there and back for a few minutes, and voila, you have oven-fresh scones!

There are two main flavoring agents working in these scones and that is the ginger and “spices” which I will take as pumpkin pie spice blend which is ubiquitous this time of year.

I fired up my oven and you want to make sure that you bake these from frozen because I’m guessing that they (Trader Joe’s) don’t want these to lose their shape before you bake them, so just keep them frozen until the oven is up to temperature.

First, you don’t have to bake them all, although that is what I did because of my teenagers (and I know how much they like scones) The instructions on the package call for placing the scones on parchment paper, but I used a silicone baking sheet called a Silpat. I’ve had these baking sheets for years and for baking anything that might stick to a sheet pan, I always use these and they never wear out and I never have to throw away anything. I highly recommend them for baking things like scones and cookies.

So, anyway, I made all 12 scones in the whole box, which you don’t have to do, you can make one at a time if you want! Here is where I wish I had done things a little differently. I wish I had done the optional cream wash on top and then sprinkled some sugar on top before I baked them, they would’ve presented better. Something I will definitely do next time.

I arranged them on my silpat (on a baking sheet) giving them room to expand and making it easier for me to spatula them off the silpat after they had completed baking.

In the picture above you see some lumps in the scones, those are the chunks of crystalized ginger that add so much to the flavor profile.

I popped them in the oven for 15 minutes and they were perfectly done when I pulled them out.

Both my kids wandered into the kitchen wondering what smelled so good and basically hovered around until the scones came out of the oven. Between the four of us, these scones lasted less than an hour… We all agreed this has to be one of the better baked food products we’ve ever had from Trader Joe’s maybe even one of the top 10 products of all time. These were that good!

These had a wonderful aroma coming out of the oven. The pumpkin pie spice blend mixed with the ginger flavor made them very aromatic.

Trader Joe’s Mini Pumpkin Ginger Scones Final Verdict

As you can probably surmise, I really really liked these scones. They have to be one of the best pumpkin products from Trader Joes. At $4.99 for a box of 12, this is a great deal, especially considering how easy they were to make. There are a couple of downsides. Ok, maybe only one downside and that is the calorie count. Two of these little puppies are going to set you back 220 calories. I could easily eat half of these without even trying, they are that good.

The only thing I wished I had done is make a sugar frosting to go on top like Trader Joe’s has on their picture on their website. I wished they had included a little squeeze pouch of frosting like you get with something like Pillsbury muffins. Next time either sugar on top or some frosting or maybe just poor a little maple syrup on them.

The texture is perfect for a scone. Scones tend to be a little dry sometimes but these weren’t all that dry and crumbly. They were pretty perfect. You can taste the pumpkin spice and especially the ginger. There is real pumpkins in these scones, in the form of pumpkin purée, but as you might know, pumpkins have very little flavor themselves and I couldn’t taste any real pumpkin flavors because of all the other flavors going on with the ginger and spices, but I do think the pumpkin added to the really nice orange color of the scones. Another slight ding against these is they weren’t all that sweet, but we are in scone territory, not cookies so scones tend to be less sweet.

Anyway, it all adds up to a great experience. I think these are some of the best things I’ve had from Trader Joe’s in a long time. I plan on buying a few boxes to keep for the rest of the holiday season.

Because of all that I am going to give them 9 out of 10 Bells as an overall rating!