Pumpkin Scones: A Lesson in Following Directions

The final thing I baked in ~America~ before heading off to Leuven, Belgium for 9 weeks! Retrospective blog post, but nonetheless necessary if this is supposed to document things I've eaten/made. Amusingly, this was the final pumpkin-flavored thing I made as well back in the states.

 I've never been a huge fan of scones. This may stem from the prejudices my mother has against them. Trivial things about how they're too fatty ect ect. But as I've grown older, I'm realizing some of these things are not correct. I'm still not a huge fan of scones, but if you like them, then you should be able to happily eat them without feeling like you've committed a crime in the baked good world.
This was my first time baking scones! It was surprisingly fast/easy. But they also didn't taste stellar, so I may have gone a bit awry. I definitely went awry when I made the white chocolate glaze. The recipe I used for it told me to just nuke the chocolate and butter in the microwave. Yet, as lots of bakers know, you can't just nuke chocolate in a microwave without it burning or seizing up. Something tells me I need to stop blindly following recipes when I know something is probably sketch. Just because the picture is pretty doesn't mean its actually excellent.

Example. This case. Oh wait. These don't even look that great in the pictures.
Pumpkin Scone recipe from Taste of Home.
White Chocolate Glaze recipe from Carly Klock (those cherry almond scones the glaze was originally intended for looks great too!)