Interstate Eats and Adventures

When it comes to cooking in the great outdoors, the most challenging project to take on is baking on the open flame. It is easy to grill up meat, poultry, fish. vegetables, potatoes on the campfire. You can work with too much heat or not enough pretty easily. You can see the food and move things around. However, baking something like a biscuit is a more uncertain process.

For this reason, I chose one dessert to perfect this summer, strawberry shortcake. I picked this because it is seasonal and the list of ingredients is short.

I quickly learned perfecting is not possible. There was always something I forgot at home like sugar or we nailed the ingredients and burned the biscuits. Or, once I got all that sorted out, I questioned the texture and taste of the cooked biscuit.

Some things are for sure like the pan, the recipe, the cream, and the berries.

Pans: I use Lodge cast iron for cooking on the open fire. The most universal pan for packing and cooking so far has been the Seasoned Cast Iron Combo Cooker. You get two pans in one. One deep and one shallow that acts as a cover or cooking pan.

The biscuit recipe. I started with Sally’s Baking Homemade Strawberry Shortcake recipe. I did not change any ingredients, only adapted the instructions for fewer people and campfire cooking.

Step 1: Mix all the dry ingredients and split them evenly into 3 mason jars. Each mason jar yields 4 biscuits. This can be done ahead.

Step 2: Using a small bowl, mix 4 tablespoons of butter with one of the dry ingredient mason jars. Use your fingers and mix the flour mixture and butter until it looks like small pea-sized clumps.

Step 3: Pour 1/3 cup of buttermilk into bowl and mix with hands or a utensil to form a sticky dough.

Step 4: Place about 1/4 cup of dough to form 4 biscuits (1 biscuit for each 1/4 cup) into the deep portion of the cast iron pan. Note: the pan should not be heated. You can set this aside until the fire is ready.

The cream. Wash out the mason jar that you stored the flour in and put about 1/2 or 1/3 cup of whipping cream and about 1-2 tsp of powdered or granulated sugar into the cream. Shake it until it solidifies. This can take about 5 minutes of vigorous shaking. You can make this ahead of time or while the biscuits cook. Store in fridge or cooler until ready to use.

The berries. Slice and add a little bit of sugar to taste. Set aside until ready to use.

Less certain are the fire and the baking. You will have to be adaptable to your own unique situation and here’s how.

The fire. Once you have all the ingredients prepped and organized, it’s time to focus on the flame. There are more factors to consider than I imagined such as the air temperature, wind, size of the fire, and distance from the flame.

For baking, you should strive for a really mellow fire. The kind of fire that already spent its energy on the flame and is now simmering hot.

You may need to change around the order of things. At home you might cook the dessert before dinner. In the great outdoors we have had to cook the meal first when the flame is high and dessert next when the fire has calmed down to simmering embers. So this has required some planning ahead related to preparation. When I sit down for dinner, the last thing I want to do is get up and prepare again. So I usually have the biscuits ready to go in the cool cast iron pan.

Once you have achieved a fire that looks tame enough to cook on but not so low that it’s dying out, place the cast iron pan on the grate. If you are using coals add some coals to the top of the pan if you would like. Note: sometimes we build a fire and add a bunch of coals as well. This way, we can move the coals around such as on top of the lid of the cast iron pan or pile them up to create a consistent and even cooking area.

Baking on the fire was a fun challenge for both of us. It required us to slow down, be more thoughtful about cooking, and we could enjoy seasonal ingredients. I am looking forward to cooler weather and a fall campfire dessert challenge that will involve apples and oats. I have these cute 5” cast iron pans and covers to match cued up for cooking!