Brown Sugar Skillet Cake with Browned Butter Glaze
A dense brown sugar cake baked in a dutch oven, finished with a browned butter glaze mixed in the lid.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 123
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 180 ml cold
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 3 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Baking powder | 2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Light brown sugar | 2 1/4 cups, packed | |
| Powdered whole egg | 6 tbsp | stands in for 4 large eggs |
| Powdered buttermilk | 3 tbsp | reconstituted with water at camp |
| Butter | 1 cup | keeps a week unrefrigerated in cool weather; ghee is safer in heat |
| Butter for the glaze | 1/2 cup | |
| Powdered sugar | 2 cups | |
| Vanilla extract | 2 tsp | |
| Powdered milk | 2 tbsp | plus about 3 tbsp water |
| Water | about 3/4 cup total |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady heat, not flame.
- Cream the cake butter and brown sugar in the dutch oven off the heat, using a spoon and some patience, until it lightens.
- Whisk the egg powder into 1/2 cup water and beat it into the butter and sugar in three additions.
- Stir the buttermilk powder into 1/4 cup water. Add the premixed flour, baking powder, and salt in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, and stop stirring the moment it comes together.
- Level the batter, lid the oven, and set it on a bed of coals with more coals on the lid. Aim for roughly a third underneath and two thirds on top so the bottom does not scorch. Rotate the oven and the lid a quarter turn every ten minutes.
- Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until a twig pushed into the center comes out with no wet batter on it. Pull it off the coals and let it sit.
- Melt the glaze butter in a small pan over a few coals, swirling until the milk solids go brown and smell toasted, about 8 minutes. Pour it off and leave the dark grit in the pan.
- Stir the powdered sugar, vanilla, milk powder, and water into the browned butter until it pours. Spoon it over the cake in the oven and let it set for ten minutes before cutting.
This started as a home cupcake recipe, which does not survive a campsite: no muffin tins, no oven thermostat, no cold buttermilk. The dutch oven takes the whole batter as one cake instead, and the eggs and buttermilk arrive as powder, which is the only part that actually needed changing. Brown sugar is doing double duty here, since it is both the sweetener and most of the moisture retention. That is why the cake stays edible on day two.
The coal split matters more than the timing. Most of the heat belongs on the lid, because a dutch oven bottom sitting in embers will burn a cake long before the center sets. Browning the butter for the glaze is the one step worth not rushing. Take it off the heat when it smells toasted, and pour it out of the pan immediately, or the residual heat carries it past brown into bitter.
Packing
Flour, baking powder, and salt in one bag. Brown sugar in another, egg powder and buttermilk powder in small labeled bags. Powdered sugar and milk powder together. Butter in a sealed tub, vanilla in a dropper bottle.
Variations
- No dutch oven: bake it in a foil pan inside a covered pot set on a ring of pebbles over the coals.
- Skip the glaze and eat it warm with the browned butter poured straight over each slice.
- A teaspoon of cinnamon in the dry mix reads closer to coffee cake.
https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/cookbook-of-the-month-recipe-brown-sugar-pound-cakes-with-brown-butter-icing