Dutch Oven Blackberry Buttermilk Custard
A tart custard baked in a pressed crumb crust over coals, built from powders instead of a dairy case.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 3.6 oz
- cal / oz
- 119
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 300 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
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Graham crackers | 9 sheets | crushed in the bag to coarse crumbs |
|---|---|---|
| Butter | 1/2 cup total | 1/4 cup for the crust, 1/4 cup melted for the filling |
| Buttermilk powder | 1/4 cup | reconstitutes to 1 cup |
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp | stands in for 3 yolks plus a little body |
| Granulated sugar | 1/2 cup | |
| All-purpose flour | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried lime zest | 1 tbsp | |
| Lime juice powder | 1 tbsp | or 1 tbsp juice from a lime you carried in |
| Vanilla | 1 tsp | paste or extract in a dropper bottle |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Blackberries | 2 cups | picked that day, or 3/4 cup dried and soaked 20 minutes |
| Water | 300 ml | cold, for the powders |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going. You want roughly 8 coals under a 10-inch oven and 16 on the lid, which lands near 350F.
- Work the 1/4 cup of butter into the graham crumbs with your fingers until they clump. Press them up the sides and across the bottom of the oven. Lid on, 8 minutes over the coals, then pull it off the heat.
- In a bowl or a wide-mouth bottle, whisk the buttermilk powder and egg powder into 300 ml of cold water. Let it sit two minutes so the powder stops being lumpy.
- Stir in the sugar, flour, salt, lime zest, lime powder, vanilla, and the melted butter. It should pour like thin cream.
- Scatter the blackberries over the crust and pour the custard over them. The berries will float and that is fine.
- Lid on, coals back on top. Bake 30 to 40 minutes. It is done when the center barely moves if you nudge the oven.
- Pull all the coals off and let it sit 20 minutes with the lid ajar. Hot custard is soup; warm custard is dessert.
A buttermilk tart is really a custard held together by a small amount of flour and a lot of acid. That makes it a good candidate for camp, because everything in the custard except the butter and the berries is available as a powder. Buttermilk powder and whole egg powder rehydrate cleanly in cold water, and neither one needs a cooler.
The crumb crust replaces rolled pastry, which is not a thing worth attempting on a fire. Press it in and pre-bake it briefly so it sets before the wet filling hits. The rest is heat management: too many coals under the oven scorches the crust before the center sets, so keep most of them on the lid.
Packing
Crush the grahams at home and pack them with the crust butter portion noted on the bag. All the dry filling ingredients go in one bag together, including the powders and zest. Butter travels fine for a few days out of direct sun; keep it in a screw-top jar.
Variations
- Any tart berry works. Huckleberries and thimbleberries both hold their shape better than blackberries.
- Swap lime for dried lemon peel and lemon juice powder if that is what is in the spice kit.
- No dutch oven: pour it into a foil pan, tent it with foil, and set it on a grill grate high over a low fire. Watch it closer.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/blackberry-buttermilk-tart