How to Roast Marshmallows for S'mores Over a Fire Pit
October 2, 20264 min readWalden Backyards
Most marshmallows get ruined in the first ten seconds. Someone pushes it straight into the flames, it catches, they blow it out, and what comes off the stick is black on the outside and cold in the middle. It is edible. It is not what anyone was going for.
There are two right ways to do this. They produce different things, and both are legitimate. The mistake is doing one by accident while trying for the other.
The Coals Method: Golden and Melted Through
This is the one most people are picturing when they say they want a good marshmallow.
Wait until the flames have died down and you have a bed of glowing coals. Hold the marshmallow a few inches above them, not in them, and rotate it slowly and continuously. Give it about two minutes.
The heat comes from below and it is even, so the sugar caramelizes across the whole surface at the same rate while the inside turns to liquid. You are looking for the color of a roasted chestnut. When the skin starts to sag and slide on the inside, it is done.
The entire technique is patience. There is nothing else to it. If you find yourself rotating faster because you are bored, you are about to make the other kind.
The Flame Method: Burnt on Purpose
Plunge the marshmallow directly into the flames and leave it for a few seconds until it lights. Pull it out, blow it out, and let it sit for a moment.
You now have a blackened, crackly shell over a molten center. Peel the shell off with your fingers and eat it on its own. It tastes like burnt sugar, because that is what it is. Then put the naked marshmallow back in the fire and do it again.
One marshmallow gives you two or three layers this way. Most people arrive at this by mistake and treat it as a failure. Done deliberately it is a different dessert, and plenty of people prefer it.
You Need Coals, Not Flames
Both methods want a fire that has settled. A fire still climbing is all flame and no heat underneath, and a fire that has gone too far has no life left in the coals.
The window you want opens maybe thirty to forty minutes after lighting, depending on your wood. If you are not getting there, the usual cause is wood that is not dry. Wet wood spends its heat boiling water out of the log, so it smokes and never builds a proper coal bed. Keeping your firewood dry is most of the battle, and it starts months before the evening you want to cook.
If the fire needs encouraging once it is down to coals, feed air into the base rather than stirring the top. A Stoker Poker lets you do that from a few feet back without putting your face in the smoke. For the full sequence from lighting to cooking, there is how to build the perfect fire.
The Chocolate Problem
Here is the part nobody mentions. A hot marshmallow is not hot enough to melt a cold square of chocolate, and it is nowhere near hot enough in October. You press the s'more together, the marshmallow flattens, and the chocolate sits there in one solid piece.
The fix takes no effort. Put the chocolate on its graham cracker and set it somewhere warm while the marshmallow toasts. The edge of a cooking grate, a flat stone near the ring, the arm of a chair in the heat. Two minutes of ambient warmth softens it without turning it to liquid.
When the marshmallow goes on, the chocolate is already halfway there and finishes immediately. That one change does more for a s'more than anything you do to the marshmallow itself.
Assembly
Cracker, warmed chocolate, marshmallow, cracker. Press down gently and hold the top cracker while you twist the stick out rather than pulling it straight back. Pulling drags the marshmallow off the cracker and onto your hand.
Then wait ten seconds before eating it. The inside of that marshmallow is close to three hundred degrees and it does not look like it.
The Stick Matters More Than You Would Think
A green branch cut from a tree works, and people have been doing it that way for a very long time. It has three problems. It is usually too short, so you end up standing close enough that your knuckles cook along with dinner. It burns through if you forget about it. And resinous wood can carry pitch, which you do not want on food.
A telescoping steel stick fixes the distance problem, which is the one that actually ruins the experience. Ours extend from ten to thirty-four inches and collapse into a pouch, so one set covers a toddler leaning in and an adult standing back from a tall fire.
Whatever you use, make it long enough that you can hold the marshmallow a few inches above the coals without crouching over them. Comfort is why people give up and jam it in the flames.
Keeping It Going
If you are feeding a crowd, work in rounds rather than letting everyone crowd the same side of the fire. One person tends, everyone else waits their turn, and the coals get a chance to recover between batches.
We built a free companion for this at Fireside. It has a fire troubleshooter, a hosting playbook, and a marshmallow section you can hold up at the fire when someone argues about golden versus charred. No account needed.
For the rest of what a fire pit can cook once the coals are right, see our cooking tips for fire pits.
