Chili Chocolate Skillet Cake
A dark chocolate cake with chili and cinnamon, baked over coals in a dutch oven.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 111
- protein
- 6 g
- serves
- 10
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- 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
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Cocoa powder | 1 cup | |
| Baking powder | 2 tsp | |
| Chili powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Instant coffee | 1 tsp | plus more for the hot brew below |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| White sugar | 1 cup | |
| Brown sugar | 3/4 cup | |
| Powdered buttermilk | 1/2 cup | replaces 1 cup fresh buttermilk |
| Powdered whole egg | 1/2 cup | stands in for 4 eggs |
| Vegetable oil or melted shortening | 1 cup | replaces the butter; travels without a cooler |
| Vanilla extract | 2 tsp | |
| Water | about 1 1/4 cups total | 1 cup cold for the buttermilk and eggs, 1/2 cup boiled for the coffee |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want a bed of embers, not flames.
- Grease a 10-inch dutch oven and dust it with cocoa powder.
- Dump the dry premix into the oven-safe mixing pot or a bag: flour, cocoa, baking powder, chili, cinnamon, instant coffee, salt, both sugars, buttermilk powder, and egg powder.
- Add 1 cup of cold water, the oil, and the vanilla. Stir until no dry pockets remain.
- Boil 1/2 cup of water, stir in a heaping teaspoon of instant coffee, and beat that hot coffee into the batter last. The batter will look too thin. It is not.
- Pour into the dutch oven, lid on. Set 8 coals under and 16 on the lid for roughly 325F.
- Bake 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the oven and the lid a quarter turn every 10 minutes so it does not scorch on one side.
- Done when a twig or knife comes out with crumbs, not batter. Let it sit 10 minutes before cutting.
This started as a butter-and-eggs cake baked in a skull-shaped pan in a home oven. Neither the butter nor the four eggs survive a weekend in a car, so both are powders here: buttermilk powder and whole egg powder rehydrate with cold water, and oil takes over the fat job. The result is slightly denser than the original and holds together better when you cut it with a pocket knife.
The hot coffee is not a flourish. Pouring boiling liquid over cocoa powder blooms it, which is where the depth comes from, and the chili and cinnamon read as warmth behind the chocolate rather than as spice. Coal placement matters more than time: more coals on the lid than underneath, or you get a burnt bottom and a wet middle.
Packing
Combine every dry ingredient, including the powdered buttermilk and egg, into one labeled zip bag at home. Oil goes in a leakproof bottle, vanilla in a small dropper. At camp it is one bag, two liquids, and water.
Variations
- Double the chili powder if you want the heat to register on the back of the throat rather than just sit there.
- Skip the chili and add orange zest powder for a plainer chocolate cake.
- No dutch oven: bake it in a foil pan inside a covered kettle grill over indirect coals.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/spiced-mexican-chocolate-cake-sugar-skulls