Hello there! I’m back from my adventure in the Great Outdoors, and I have a couple of fantastic camping recipes to share with you this week.
I love the challenge of making tasty, healthy food while stranded in the wilderness. I mean, there is a time and place for unhealthy food on my camping menu as well, but I try to mostly avoid anything that comes from a package. I usually manage to produce some pretty tasty meals with relatively little effort and preparation. I think it also helps that everything tastes good when this is your kitchen:
A cast iron skillet is essential camping gear. It’s non-stick, easy to clean, and heats evenly on everything from a hot plate to a camping stove to a campfire. The more you use it, the better it works, and if you take care of yours properly it will last a lifetime.
I’ve made cakes and cobblers in my cast iron at home before, in the comfort and safety of my oven. “Baking” with it over a campfire was an entirely different adventure, but the end result was incredibly satisfying. It was so good, it didn’t even matter that the campers in the next site over ended up thinking I was a crazy person as I photographed my cobbler (in all its stages of preparation) on the forest floor…
Yep, pine needles make a lovely background for a photo, don’t they?
This cobbler is simple to throw together; the only preparation you have to do at home before you leave is to mix up the dry ingredients. To assemble, you simply melt the butter in the skillet over the campfire – a step which has the added bonus of greasing your pan while you do it – then mix the melted butter with your pre-mixed dry ingredients, throw some berries in the skillet and top with the buttery crumble mixture. Cover with tin foil, set over the fire, and let it bubble away while you prepare and eat your dinner.
I urge you to let the fire burn down so that you’re cooking over the white-hot coals, because if the fire is too big and flames are touching the bottom of the skillet, you risk burning the berries before the topping has a chance to cook fully. Not only would that affect the flavour, but you could end up with a serious burnt sugar mess in the bottom of your skillet!
This would have been fabulous with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but sadly I haven’t figured out how to successfully pack ice cream on a summer camping trip. However, I discovered it was just as tasty with a dollop of thick, rich, creamy lemon-flavoured Greek yogurt.
Try it on your next camping trip and let me know what you think!
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
- 4 cups berries (I used 2 cups blueberries, and 1 cup each blackberries and strawberries)
- Before you leave home, mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt in a reusable container.
- Over the white-hot coals of a campfire (on the metal grate/cover), melt butter in a 9-inch cast iron skillet. Pour melted butter into container with flour mixture, and stir until incorporated. Spread berries into an even layer on the bottom of the cast iron skillet, then sprinkle butter-flour mixture overtop. Cover with 2 sheets of tin foil, crimping around the edges to seal.
- Return skillet to grate over campfire and cook for 30-45 minutes, until the berries are cooked and bubbling and the topping is golden brown. Serve immediately with ice cream, Greek yogurt or whipped cream.
