Kale and Orange Camp Cupcakes
Green cupcakes baked in a dutch oven, sweetened with orange and hiding a handful of kale.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 111
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 12, scales
- prep
- 25 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 60 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
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Cavolo nero or kale | 40 g | stems stripped, leaves only |
|---|---|---|
| Unsalted butter, softened | 150 g | for the batter |
| Granulated sugar | 150 g | |
| Eggs | 2 large | |
| Vanilla extract | 2 tsp | |
| Orange zest | 2 tbsp | zest at home, carry in a small jar |
| Orange juice | 4 tbsp | plus 2-3 tbsp for the icing |
| Plain flour | 200 g | |
| Baking powder | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Unsalted butter | 75 g | for the icing |
| Icing sugar | 250 g |
Method
- Build a fire down to coals, or light a chimney of briquettes. You want roughly 8 coals under a 12 inch dutch oven and 16 on the lid, which runs about 325F.
- Boil the kale leaves in a little water for three or four minutes until limp. Drain, cool with cold water, and wring them out hard in a bandana. Chop fine, then mash to a paste with a spoon against the side of the pot, loosening with a splash of the orange juice.
- Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the kale paste, vanilla, zest, and the rest of the orange juice. It will look curdled. Ignore that.
- Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt until just combined. The batter pulls back together here.
- Divide into 12 paper cases set in the dutch oven, or into a foil muffin tray inside it. Lid on, coals on top, 20 to 25 minutes. Rotate the oven and lid a quarter turn every ten minutes so nothing scorches.
- Check with a twig or knife tip. Clean means done. Pull them out and let them cool all the way.
- Beat the remaining butter with the icing sugar and enough orange juice to make it spreadable, then swirl it onto the cool cupcakes.
This is a car camping bake, not a trail one. It needs a cooler, real eggs, and coals you can control, so it belongs at a site where you are staying two nights and have time to burn.
The kale is doing color work more than flavor work. Boiled, wrung out, and mashed to a paste, it turns the crumb green while the orange zest and juice carry everything you actually taste. Wring the leaves properly. Wet greens mean a heavy, dense cake, and a dutch oven is unforgiving about that. Coal count matters more than time here, so check early and rotate often.
Packing
Weigh the flour, baking powder, and salt together into one bag at home. Sugar in another, icing sugar in a third. Zest the oranges before you leave and keep the zest in a small jar in the cooler. Butter and eggs ride in the cooler.
Variations
- Spinach or Swiss chard works the same way. So does dandelion greens if you know your patch.
- No dutch oven: bake them in a covered skillet over very low coals, or make one thick round cake and cut it into wedges.
- Skip the icing and dust the tops with sugar. One less bowl to wash.
https://hedgecombers.com/cavolo-nero-and-orange-cupcakes-from-veggie-desserts