Campfire Scones

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This past weekend, we had a braai (South African bbq) with a bunch of friends. It was lots of fun, delicious, full of dominoes and charades, and very chilly out. And in line with the winter spirit, I decided to try out Campfire Scones. They just sounded like the perfect dessert for a braai. Confession: The ones in the picture above are not mine (in case you actually thought they were). But mine didn't come out too far off. Here's how my baking experience with these went, if you're interested in trying them out.

The recipe was straight forward and easy to follow (except for the topping...but we'll get to that just now).

I started by mixing the dry ingredients first and then the wet ingredients separately, then combining. My batter seemed to be a bit drier than it was probably supposed to be, so I added just a smidge bit more of buttermilk, to moisten things up.
I also added 1/8 a cup of graham cracker crust to the dry ingredients. I did this because a) I didn't want to go buy whole wheat flour (I already had white) and thought this might give the scones that s'mores taste, and b) I had a bag of graham cracker crust that still needed to be used up.

After combining, flour a flat surface and press dough out till it has a 1" thickness. Then use a cookie cutter (or glass cup, like I did) to cut out scones.

Place on baking sheet and then bake.

My scones came out looking great! They tasted good, but not amazing, to be honest. I'm not sure if I missed something or what, but they weren't incredibly sweet. Still tasty, nonetheless.

Then came time to make the meringue topping...This was a fail but I was quite pleased with what I came up with as an alternative (especially at the last minute).

I'm not sure why my topping failed. I followed the instructions (or so I think) but in beating the mixture, it never really thickened. There were no peaks as it whipped. (That sounds like it should somehow be inappropriate?) I did try it out: I scooped some onto a scone and baked as directed...hubby thought it tasted good, but it definitely didn't look pretty. I should have taken a picture.

So, I ran to the grocery store and bought two bags of large marshmallows (two bags because here you can't get a bag of only white mallows...they are all pink and white...and I wanted to use only the white ones).

Turn oven onto broil and place one marshmallow on top of each scone. Put tray of marshmallow-topped scones onto top rack of oven and broil for just a couple minutes, just enough to soften the mallows. After just three or four minutes, I pulled the tray out and pressed each marshmallow to flatten them a bit. (Don't worry, they really don't feel too hot.) Then stick the tray back on the top rack to brown the mallows.

I think they came out beautifully! And they were so fun to eat! At the last minute, hubby thought it would be a good idea to put a piece of chocolate on top of each little delectable to give each one even more of a s'mores taste. I think that was the perfect finishing touch!

PS - I ran out of white marshmallows; so, I had to use a few pink ones. Sigh. Marshmallows are just not meant to be pink.