The Hard Times Cafe

CAMPFIRE COOKING/BAKING

07:30, Thursday, July 10, 2008 .. 3 comments .. Link

Campfire cooking is something we have done for awhile, we've always been campers. Campfire baking, well, that's a different story. Cooking and baking are two totally different things. Cooking is on top of the stove, baking is in the oven. So, to cook over your campfire, you need a few basic tools, good heavy pans, cast iron is always best. A grill grate to keep your pans above the flame or a tripod. Cook away.

Campfire baking, that requires more time and attentiveness. I've done it once or twice in the past, but never as a main source to feed my ever hungry family. But in the past week I've been on a learning curve with it and to be honest, I find it quite rewarding.

If you are familiar at all with woodstove cooking a lot of the motions are the same. On the woodstove when baking, you work your drafts, dampers, flu and oven door.

With campfire baking you have to work your coals and flame of your fire to make sure you have adequate coals for your baking. Unlike the camp fire cooking you aren't using your flame at all to cook with. Its the hot coals that do the baking. Similar to using charcoal. You want to get past the flame and red hot coal stage into the white hot coal stage.

Cast iron cookware is a must with campfire baking unless you are using a tin kitchen, we'll talk about that at a later date. To bake in the coals you need the sturdiness of the cast. Your cast iron must also have a lid.

Make no mistake about this, campfire cooking/baking is not for the faint of heart. You will work for your food especially when your in that "learning" phase. It is hot, you come away smelling like campfire smoke, a smell I enjoy, sad I know. You have to be patient because it takes time to create the coals, I do mean time. Already this week after getting a fire started to bake and just when it was at that "ready" point I got rained out. I baked in the pit on of the hottest, most humid days we've had this year and I've learned the hard way that when checking my baked goods that if I'm not careful, ashes will add themselves to my product, as you will see in these pictures. But all in all, its quiet, its satisfying and makes me connect with so many things. I know to some that may sound silly or even a little strange. But like yesterday was my sons birthday and he wanted a coffee cake for his birthday cake. Now it doesn't take any longer or any less time to bake in the coals of the fire pit then it does in a conventional oven but it does require your complete attention as you have to keep checking your product. Right now sense I'm learning the cooking energy of the coals I check my stuff about every 5 minutes. Doesn't sound like a big deal except your dealing with very hot coals, you have coals shoveled on top of your dutch oven so those have to be removed and then reassembled and every time you open that lid you take a chance on getting ashes in you pan. But there is really no way around it. Anyways, it was a beautiful morning, I sat out by the fire by myself and took a moment to connect with God's creation in its peacefulness. If I were in the house at the propane stove I'd have used that time to do some cleaning elsewhere. Even though its more time consuming at the pit, its certainly forcing me to or allowing me the chance to find extra time with God. Not to mention to realize over and over again how we in America really too good and I do mean too good. Hence so much independence from God.

So here's some photos of campfire baking.

Here is a photo of a spider dutch oven.

Simple tools you will need to help with the baking. A pair of old welding gloves from my husband to help pull the pan out of the pit and a homemade lid lifter my son made for me. You will also need a shovel to work the coals.

The brown sugar on top will bake down to the bottom. This is a dangerous recipe to bake in coals when just learning as sugars burn easily.

Notice how large my fire pit is. Big enough to pull the fire away from my baking area and to allow me to keep it going so I can keep hot coals.

Checking the coffee cake

I keep an extra close eye on the bottom of the cake as the bottom of the bake goods seem to cook first. Once they get close to being done I remove all coals from under my oven and stay focused with keeping hot coals on top.

In the picture above its almost done but not quite. Notice the ashes on the edge of the handle.

The picture below the cake is done but when pulling it for the final time out of the fire is wehn my ashes fell in from the handle.

The coffee cake after I put a glaze on it.

You can see in the picture below how the brown sugar baked to the bottom, sadly 1/2 of the cake did burn as I had too many or too hot of coals next to it at some point. All in all I'd say it was successful. And my family, who loves with a great love wood stove cooking above all other forms, propane, electric etc gave this a range of taste as when cooking in the wood stove. Which of course pleased me. Wood does do something for the flavor.

The Hard Times Cafe

CAMPFIRE COOKING/BAKING

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Thank you so very much.

Very cool post

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