When I was younger my family used to join my brother's boy scout troop at the family cookouts and they made this delicious dessert, it is not homemade but it is such a simple recipe for when you are out of your kitchen. The troop leader used to bring up a box of cobbler, either peach or cherry and in a kettle pot add that and a can of soda, either sprite for the peach or coke for the cherry. It always turns out delicious and no eggs, milk or oil is needed!
can(s) of pie filling or canned fruit in heavy syrup--peaches are perhaps the most common. You want about 28 oz of this more or less but is not exact.
1 box of yellow cake mix
1 can of lemon lime or gingerale soda. Must be sugar/corn syrup sweetened, not diet.
12 inch camping oven, also called a dutch oven--has 3 legs to hold it above the coals and a rimmed lid to hold the coals on top.
Charcoal, about 30 briquets worth
Light the charcoal and let it burn to an even gray. A chimney starter is ideal for this.
Arrange about 9 briquets to fit under the dutch oven, no coals in the center. Put the dutch oven over the coals. Fine tune the placement of the briquets as needed.
Open the cans of pie filling/fruit and pour in the bottom of the dutch oven. Open the cake mix and sprinkle it evenly over the fruit. Open the can of soda and pour evenly over the cake mix.
Put on the lid and arrange 15 coals around the top. Every 15 minutes, rotate the oven 1/4 turn clockwise and the lid 1/4 counter-clockwise. This evens out hotspots that form easily when cooking with charcoal, especially if you're using lump charcoal or coals from a wood fire.
Bake 30-45 minues. Exact timing depends on weather, altitude, cooking in the sun vs the shade and other similar uncontrollable factors. With experence you'll learn to add or subtract coals to better match your cooking environment.
Variations
Spice cake mixes are good also and quite multipurpose. You'll often see chocolate cake mixes used with cherry filling and dr. pepper for the soda with the cherries and chocolate cake.
If you're new to Dutch oven cooking, here's a good starting point formula for the number of coals you need.
Take the number of the Dutch oven. This usually corresponds to the diameter. For the bottom heat, subtract three from the oven number. For the top, add three.
Note that that's exactly what Phil did. So, if you're using a larger or smaller oven, just follow the formula and you'll get the same results.
Also, pay attention to his tip about rotating the oven and the lid. Most Dutch oven cooks don't, often to their detriment. It's especially worthwhile with baked goods, but is a valuable proceedure for just about anything cooked that way.
A 12 inch dutch oven is very close to the same size as a 9x13 baking dish. This makes it easy to adapt your favorite casseroles and desserts to camp food.
A caveat I'd add to KYH's statement above is that if you put the dump cake in a 10" it will take a little longer to cook as you've got a thicker cobbler to heat up. Conversely in a 14" it will be spread out more and thinner so cook quicker.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that, Phil. Just thought it was self evident.
It's going smaller, I'd say, that's important for adjustments. Not too many casual Dutch oven cooks have 14s (but dontcha love 'em!). But 10s are almost as common as 12s.
Something else newbies should know is that a "tall" version cooks a particular dish in the same time as a standard. What counts is the volume of the contents, not the volume of the oven---anymore than it does at home.
can(s) of pie filling or canned fruit in heavy syrup--peaches are perhaps the most common. You want about 28 oz of this more or less but is not exact.
1 box of yellow cake mix
1 can of lemon lime or gingerale soda. Must be sugar/corn syrup sweetened, not diet.
12 inch camping oven, also called a dutch oven--has 3 legs to hold it above the coals and a rimmed lid to hold the coals on top.
Charcoal, about 30 briquets worth
Light the charcoal and let it burn to an even gray. A chimney starter is ideal for this.
Arrange about 9 briquets to fit under the dutch oven, no coals in the center. Put the dutch oven over the coals. Fine tune the placement of the briquets as needed.
Open the cans of pie filling/fruit and pour in the bottom of the dutch oven. Open the cake mix and sprinkle it evenly over the fruit. Open the can of soda and pour evenly over the cake mix.
Put on the lid and arrange 15 coals around the top. Every 15 minutes, rotate the oven 1/4 turn clockwise and the lid 1/4 counter-clockwise. This evens out hotspots that form easily when cooking with charcoal, especially if you're using lump charcoal or coals from a wood fire.
Bake 30-45 minues. Exact timing depends on weather, altitude, cooking in the sun vs the shade and other similar uncontrollable factors. With experence you'll learn to add or subtract coals to better match your cooking environment.
Variations
Spice cake mixes are good also and quite multipurpose. You'll often see chocolate cake mixes used with cherry filling and dr. pepper for the soda with the cherries and chocolate cake.
My family makes almost the exact same kind of cobbler when we used to go on shooting trips in the desert in california, its a great dessert and fairly simple to make.
Me and my family usually go camping every summer. HHmm, I think we'll gotta try this easy camping dessert. Thanks you for sharing. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif
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