Ham & Cheese Scones

I have a simple scone recipe I use when camping. None of the ingredients needs to be refrigerated. I use self-raising flour, long-life cream and long-life milk, which is super handy if you have limited fridge/esky space.

Near the end of our last camping trip, I noticed I had ham, cheese and some herbs left over. To use them up, I decided to make ham and cheese scones. I was super pleased they turned out perfectly delicious.

Dwayne is always in charge of cooking the scones over the fire. I simply told him I would usually cook them at 200C for about 30 minutes and let him work on getting the right temperature over the fire.

Further on, you will find some instructions about cooking scones in a camp oven and tips on what you need to consider when producing the cooking heat.

Our camp kitchen
We cooked these yummy scones on a recent camping trip on Kangaroo Island. We were camped at American River.

Table of Contents

Ingredients

3 cups self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
1/2 cup chopped ham
1 cup coarsely grated cheese
A pinch of salt
300ml cream
About 75 ml of milk

Method

Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl, add the chives, rosemary, ham, cheese and a pinch of salt, and mix well.

Make a well in the middle of the bowl and add the cream and most of the milk. Mix well and add more milk if necessary. The dough should not be too wet and sticky. Do not over-mix the dough.

Turn dough onto a floured board and knead a little (do not over-knead). Shape the dough into a ball and then flatten it to the shape of your camp oven. Place on a greased piece of baking paper and cut into wedges (you do not need to cut all the way through.

Heat your camp oven over the coals. Carefully lift the dough/scones by the baking paper and place them into the camp oven.

Cook the scones with a little heat under the camp oven and coals on top. Our theory is to cook it from both top and bottom with more heat on top. We hung our camp oven over a small fire. Using a star-drop (as a makeshift tripod), Dwayne could lift the camp oven higher to reduce the heat or lower it to increase the heat. We used heat beads on the top of the camp oven because we hadn’t had time to develop many coals and the heat beads hold their heat better, making this ‘brunch’ reasonably quick to make. We checked every 10 minutes until the scones were ready. We adjusted the heat if needed, when we checked it.

Use a knife to see if the scones are ready. Dig in deep with the tip of a knife; if the knife comes out clean, the scones should be ready.

To cook in your home oven.
Place the scones on a greased oven tray and bake at 200C in a preheated oven for about 30 minutes.

For more instruction on cooking with hot coals.

If you want to cook on coals from a campfire, you need to burn a good amount of wood to create hot coals. It can take an hour or so for your campfire to make enough coals to cook with. Be sure to factor the process of producing the embers into your prep and cooking time. Alternatively, if time or good wood is in short supply, use heat-beads as they heat up quickly and hold their heat well.

The easiest way to cook in a camp oven over hot coals is to lift the coals out of the fire with a long-handled shovel. Select a safe place next to the fire and put a small amount of *coals on the ground. Place the camp oven onto the coals. Get more coals from the fire to place on top of the oven. Getting the right amount of coals is not always easy. Be aware of cooking the scones too hot and burning them. It will take some experimentation to get the temperature right. Therefore, check the scones after 10 minutes to make sure you are not cooking them too hot or not hot enough.

*you only need a small number of coals under the camp oven or none. Too many, and you will burn the bottom of the scones. Many factors determine the heat of the coals, such as ambient temperature and wind. If it is windy, the coals will cook hotter. Make allowances for wind by reducing the number of coals used.