Dutch Oven Apple Crisp with Chip Streusel
Dried apples rehydrated in a dutch oven under a brown sugar, oat, and crushed-chip topping.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 116
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- 500 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
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried apple slices | 5 cups | unsweetened rings or wedges, broken up |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1/4 cup | |
| All-purpose flour | 2 tbsp | for the fruit layer |
| Cinnamon | 1 1/2 tsp | split between filling and topping |
| Nutmeg | 1/4 tsp | |
| Old-fashioned oats | 1 cup | |
| All-purpose flour | 1/2 cup | for the streusel |
| Crushed potato chips | 3/4 cup | plain salted, crushed in the bag |
| Brown sugar | 1/2 cup | |
| Salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Shortening or shelf-stable butter | 1/2 cup | canned butter or solid shortening, no cooler needed |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp | |
| Water | 500 ml |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals, or light about 24 charcoal briquettes.
- Put the dried apples in the dutch oven with the sugar, 2 tbsp flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and 500 ml of water. Stir and set it over the coals until the water comes up to a boil, then pull it off and let the fruit sit 10 minutes.
- While it soaks, mix the oats, 1/2 cup flour, brown sugar, salt, remaining cinnamon, and half the crushed chips in a bag. Work in the shortening with your fingers until it clumps.
- Spread the streusel over the fruit. Scatter the rest of the chips on top.
- Set the oven on a bed of coals with more coals on the lid, roughly a third below and two thirds above. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the oven and lid a quarter turn every 10 minutes.
- Pull the lid when the top browns and the fruit bubbles at the edge. Let it stand 10 minutes or it will run.
The original version of this bakes fresh Pink Lady apples with cold butter and finishes with whipped cream. None of that survives a night in a car, so the fruit is dried apples that rehydrate in their own spiced liquid, the butter is shortening or the canned kind, and the cream is gone. What is left still works because the structure was never the cream. It was salt and fat against sweet fruit.
The crushed chips are the part worth keeping. They bring salt and grease into the topping and they stay crisp longer than oats alone, which matters in a dutch oven where steam has nowhere to go. Coal placement is the only real skill here: more heat on the lid than under it, or the fruit scorches before the streusel colors.
Packing
Dry streusel mix in one bag, dried apples and their spice sugar in another. Chips ride whole in their own bag and get crushed at camp. Shortening goes in a screw-top jar.
Variations
- Skip the chips and use an extra 1/2 cup of oats if salted fruit is not your thing.
- Powdered coconut milk whisked with a little water makes a pourable topping without a cooler.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/ladies-night-apple-crisp