Monster Cookies for the Cooler
Chocolate cookie dough mixed at home, baked over coals in a dutch oven. Candy eyes go on last.
- calories
- 330
- weight
- 2.4 oz
- cal / oz
- 138
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 45 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 65 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
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Butter | 50 g | salted is fine |
|---|---|---|
| Dark baking chocolate | 200 g | chopped coarse before you leave |
| Eggs | 2 | |
| Sugar | 150 ml | |
| All-purpose flour | 200 ml | |
| Baking powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Vanilla sugar | 1 tsp | or 1 tsp sugar plus a few drops vanilla |
| Candy eyes | 1 small package | |
| Parchment paper | 1 sheet |
Method
- Burn a fire down to coals well before you want cookies. You need a bed, not flames.
- Melt the butter in the dutch oven over low coals, pull the pot off the heat, and stir in the chopped chocolate until it goes smooth. Set it aside to cool.
- In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar hard until the mixture pales and thickens. This is the only leavening that matters, so keep at it.
- Fold in the flour, baking powder, and vanilla sugar with a spatula, then fold in the cooled chocolate.
- Chill the dough in the cooler for 30 minutes, until it holds a shape.
- Wipe out the dutch oven, line it with parchment, and spoon in flattened balls of dough with gaps between them.
- Lid on. Set the oven on a ring of coals and pile more on the lid, roughly twice as many on top as underneath. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the pot and lid a quarter turn every five.
- Press the candy eyes in while the cookies are still soft. Cool on the lid or a flat rock before moving them.
This is a baked cookie, which means it belongs at a car camp or basecamp with a dutch oven and a real fire, not in a pack. The dough carries no water and almost no chemical leavening. Everything rises on the air you whip into the eggs and sugar, so that step is where the cookie is won or lost.
Coal placement does the rest. Bottom heat alone scorches the undersides before the centers set, so most of the coals go on the lid. Chilling the dough matters more over a fire than in an oven, because a cold ball spreads slower and gives the edges time to crisp while the middle stays chewy. The candy eyes will melt if you add them before the bake.
Packing
Measure the flour, baking powder, and vanilla sugar into one bag and the sugar into another at home. Butter, chocolate, and eggs ride in the cooler; eggs travel best in a rigid container. Candy eyes go in a small tin so they do not crush.
Variations
- Mix the dry ingredients with 2 tbsp powdered egg and skip the cooler entirely. Add 4 tbsp water with the melted chocolate.
- Half a cup of chopped dried cherries in the dough cuts the sweetness.
https://www.matprat.no/oppskrifter/kos/monster-cookies