Dutch Oven Chocolate Cake
Boxed-pantry chocolate cake baked over coals, with a chocolate topping that sets as it cools.
- calories
- 410
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 117
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 12
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 240 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
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 1 3/4 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 2 cups | |
| Cocoa powder | 3/4 cup | |
| Baking soda | 2 tsp | |
| Baking powder | 1 tsp | |
| Kosher salt | 1 tsp | |
| Powdered whole eggs | equivalent of 2 eggs | about 5 tbsp powder plus 5 tbsp water |
| Buttermilk powder | 1/4 cup | reconstitutes to 1 cup with water |
| Vegetable oil | 1/2 cup | |
| Vanilla extract | 2 tsp | |
| Instant coffee | 2 tsp | stirred into 1 cup of hot water |
| Water | about 2 cups total | 1 cup coffee, 1 cup for the buttermilk, 5 tbsp for the eggs |
| Milk chocolate chips | 6 oz | |
| Powdered heavy cream | 3 tbsp | whisked with 1/3 cup hot water |
| Oil or shortening for the pot | 1 tbsp |
Method
- Burn a fire down to coals well before you want cake. You need roughly 25 briquette-sized coals, or an equivalent bed of hardwood embers.
- Grease a 12-inch Dutch oven, bottom and an inch up the sides. Line the bottom with parchment if you have it.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in one bowl.
- In a second bowl, whisk the egg powder with 5 tbsp water and the buttermilk powder with 1 cup water. Add the oil, vanilla, and the hot coffee. Whisk until uniform.
- Pour the wet into the dry and stir just until no dry flour is left. The batter will be thin. That is correct.
- Pour into the Dutch oven, lid on. Put 8 coals under the pot and 17 on the lid. Rotate the pot a third turn one way and the lid a third turn the other way every 10 minutes so nothing scorches.
- Bake 40 to 50 minutes. Done when a twig or knife comes out with crumbs, not batter. Pull the bottom coals off at 35 minutes if you smell it darkening.
- Let the cake cool in the pot with the lid off for 20 minutes.
- Whisk the cream powder into 1/3 cup of hot water in a mug, add the chocolate chips, and stir until smooth. Pour over the cake and let it set.
Camp baking fails in two places: heat control and dairy. The heat is solved by counting coals rather than guessing, and by keeping most of them on the lid, since a Dutch oven browns from the top and burns from the bottom. Rotating the pot and lid in opposite directions evens out the hot spots the fire leaves.
The dairy is solved with powder. Buttermilk, eggs, and cream all come as shelf-stable powders that rehydrate well enough for a batter and a topping, so nothing in this needs a cooler. The hot coffee is not a flavor gimmick — it blooms the cocoa and thins the batter so it bakes through in the middle before the edges set hard. This is a 12-serving dessert for a group at a car campsite; it does not scale down to one pot of anything useful.
Packing
Combine the dry cake ingredients in one zip bag at home and the egg, buttermilk, and cream powders in a second. Chocolate chips in a third. Oil and vanilla go in small leakproof bottles inside a bag, because they will leak eventually.
Variations
- No chocolate chips means no ganache. Sift powdered sugar over the cooled cake instead.
- Swap the coffee water for plain hot water if you are feeding kids at night.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/chocolate-cake-with-ganache