Dutch Oven Strawberry Shortcake
Biscuit dough over coals, dried strawberries rehydrated in their own syrup, whipped topping from a bag.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 3.6 oz
- cal / oz
- 119
- protein
- 6 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 30 min
- total time
- 45 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
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1/2 cup, plus 1/4 cup for the berries | |
| Baking powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Vegetable shortening | 1/2 cup | stays solid in a pack; butter does not |
| Whole milk powder | 1/3 cup | reconstitutes to about 2/3 cup milk |
| Powdered egg | 1 tbsp | equals one egg |
| Vanilla powder | 1/2 tsp | extract works if you already carry it |
| Freeze-dried strawberry slices | 3 oz | |
| Powdered lemonade or citric acid | 1/2 tsp | stands in for lemon juice |
| Instant whipped topping powder | 1/2 cup |
Method
- Put the strawberries, the 1/4 cup of sugar, and the citric acid in a mug or jar. Pour over 200 ml of just-boiled water, stir, and set aside. They need twenty minutes to come back.
- Build a bed of coals. You want roughly 8 briquettes under a 10-inch oven and 16 on the lid, or the equivalent in raked hardwood coals.
- In a bowl, whisk the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, milk powder, egg powder, and vanilla powder together.
- Cut in the shortening with two forks or your fingers until the mix looks like coarse gravel. Do not work it smooth.
- Add 150 ml of cold water a splash at a time, stirring only until the dough holds together.
- Grease the Dutch oven, drop the dough in as eight rough mounds, seat the lid, and set it on the coals. Rotate the oven a third turn every ten minutes and the lid the other way.
- Check at 25 minutes. A dry stick pushed into the center should come out clean. Give it five more if it does not.
- Whisk the topping powder with 100 ml of cold water in a leakproof jar until it holds a peak. Split the biscuits, spoon the berries and their syrup over, and top.
Shortcake is a biscuit that happens to be sweet, which makes it one of the few desserts that survives the trip to a fire pit intact. The fresh parts are the problem, not the baking. Freeze-dried strawberries with sugar and a little acid poured over them make their own syrup in about twenty minutes, and that syrup is what soaks into the split biscuit. Butter, milk, cream, and eggs all come out of bags here: shortening for the fat, milk powder and powdered egg in the dry mix, and instant topping whisked with cold water instead of whipping heavy cream.
Lid heat is what browns the top, so most of your coals belong up there. Rotating the oven and the lid in opposite directions is the whole technique for avoiding a scorched patch where the fire runs hot. Keep the dough shaggy. Overworked biscuit dough bakes dense, and a dense shortcake will not take on syrup.
Packing
Mix the dry biscuit ingredients at home and carry them in one zip bag. Shortening rides in a screw-top tub. Berries, sugar, and citric acid go in a second bag; whipped topping powder in a third.
Variations
- Freeze-dried raspberries or blueberries swap in one for one.
- No Dutch oven: cook the dough as thick pancakes in a greased skillet over low coals, four minutes a side.
- A tablespoon of powdered buttermilk in the dry mix sharpens the biscuit.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/fresh-fluted-strawberry-shortcake