Dutch Oven Peach Dump Cobbler
Dried peaches, cake mix, and butter in a dutch oven. One pan, no measuring beyond a water bottle.
- calories
- 480
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 107
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 400 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 peach slices | 3 cups | stands in for 6 fresh peaches |
|---|---|---|
| Vanilla cake mix | 1 box | about 15 oz |
| Butter | 6 tbsp | keeps a week unrefrigerated; ghee if it is hot out |
| Brown sugar | 3 tbsp | |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp | or a vanilla sugar packet |
| Water | 1 1/2 cups |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want heat, not flame.
- Put the dried peaches in the dutch oven with 1 1/2 cups of water and set it over the coals. Simmer 10 minutes until the fruit plumps and the water goes syrupy.
- Pull it off the heat. Stir in the brown sugar, vanilla, and butter until the butter melts.
- Dump the dry cake mix over the top and stir until no powder is left. It will be thick and lumpy. That is right.
- Lid on. Set the oven on a bed of coals and shovel more coals across the lid, roughly twice as many on top as underneath.
- Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Rotate the oven a third turn every ten minutes and the lid the other way so nothing scorches.
- It is done when the top is set and dry to the touch. Let it sit five minutes before serving.
Fresh peaches are mostly water, and water is the one thing you do not haul. Dried peaches carry the same sugar and flavor at a fraction of the weight, and rehydrating them in the pot builds the syrup the original recipe gets from the fruit’s own juice. The measured 1 1/2 cups replaces both the fruit juice and the splash of water in the home version.
The cake mix does two jobs: it thickens the fruit into a sauce and forms the crust on top. Stirring it in rather than sprinkling it dry means no chalky pockets, which is the usual failure with dump cobblers. Coals on the lid are what browns the top; heat from below alone will burn the bottom before the middle sets.
Packing
Cake mix, brown sugar, and dried peaches each in their own bag. Butter in a screw-top jar. A vanilla sugar packet weighs nothing and beats carrying a glass extract bottle.
Variations
- Dried apples or a bag of mixed dried berries work the same way.
- A spice cake mix instead of vanilla, with a shake of cinnamon in the fruit.
- No dutch oven: cook it in a foil pan inside a covered grill, same time and heat.
https://mealswithmaria.site/fresh-peach-cobbler-recipe