Giant Camp Cookies in the Dutch Oven
Eight hand-sized chocolate chip cookies baked over coals. Premix the dry at home and it is a two-bowl job at the site.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5.3 oz
- cal / oz
- 136
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 18 min
- total time
- 33 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Cake flour | 1 1/2 cups | premixed at home with the other dry goods |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 1 1/2 cups | |
| Cornstarch | 2 tsp | |
| Baking soda | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Brown sugar | 1 cup, packed | |
| Granulated sugar | 1/2 cup | |
| Unsalted butter | 1 cup | cold, cut into cubes before you leave; keep it in the cooler |
| Eggs | 2 | cooler, packed in a hard case |
| Mini chocolate chips | 2 cups | hold back 1/4 cup for the tops |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down. You want a bed of coals, not flames. Roughly 8 coals under the oven and 16 on the lid puts a 12-inch dutch oven near 350°F.
- In a bowl, work the cold butter cubes into both sugars with a fork or your hands until the mix is grainy and lightened. Cold butter is the point. Do not let it go to soup.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Add the premixed dry bag and stir only until no dry flour is left. Overmixing makes them tough.
- Fold in the chocolate chips, holding back a small handful.
- Line the dutch oven with parchment. Form four dough balls, spaced wide, and press the reserved chips onto the tops.
- Set the lid on, coals above and below, and bake 15 to 18 minutes. Lift the lid at 12 to check. Edges set, centers still soft.
- Let them sit in the oven off the heat for 10 minutes before moving them or they tear. Bake the second four while the first batch cools.
This started as a 410°F oven recipe, which a fire pit will not give you reliably. Coals run cooler and less even, so the bake here is longer and lower, four cookies at a time, with the lid carrying most of the heat. Everything else stays: cake flour and cornstarch keep the crumb tender, and creaming cold butter rather than softened keeps the dough thick enough that a hand-sized ball holds its shape instead of spreading into a sheet.
Mix the dry goods at home. Measuring seven things out of separate bags at a picnic table in the wind is how you end up with two teaspoons of baking soda. Butter and eggs need a cooler, so this is a car-camping recipe and nothing else. The chips pressed on top before baking are not decoration; they are the only part that melts visibly, and a cookie baked under a lid comes out pale otherwise.
Packing
Both flours, cornstarch, soda, salt, and both sugars go into one gallon bag at home, shaken together. Chocolate chips in a second bag. Butter cubed and eggs in the cooler. Carry parchment cut to the diameter of your oven.
Variations
- Swap a cup of the chips for chopped dark chocolate if you want pools instead of dots.
- No dutch oven: press the dough into a foil pan, cover with foil, and set it on a grill grate over low coals for about 20 minutes.
- Doubling works, but bake four at a time regardless. Crowding steams them.
https://mealswithmaria.site/big-chocolate-chip-cookie