Skillet Apple Cinnamon Cake
A church-cookbook coffee cake rebuilt to bake in a foil-lined pot over coals.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 4.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 93
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 120 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.
- Breakfast
- Dessert
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 1 1/2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Baking powder | 2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Sugar | 3/4 cup | for the batter |
| Powdered whole egg | 1 tbsp | replaces 1 fresh egg, plus 2 tbsp of the water |
| Powdered milk | 3 tbsp | reconstitutes into the 1/2 cup of liquid |
| Shelf-stable margarine or shortening | 1/4 cup | solid stick margarine travels fine in a cool pack |
| Vanilla | 1 tsp | or a scraping of vanilla powder in the dry mix |
| Water | 1/2 cup | |
| Margarine for the topping | 1 1/2 tbsp | |
| Sugar for the topping | 1/3 cup | |
| Cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Dried apple slices | 2 cups | about 2 fresh apples' worth; rehydrate before use |
Method
- Cover the dried apples with warm water in a cup and leave them 20 minutes. Drain and squeeze out the excess.
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady heat, not flame.
- Line the Dutch oven with foil or grease it well.
- In a bag or the lid, cut the margarine into the sugar with a spoon until it looks like wet sand. Stir in the egg powder.
- Add the flour mix and the water in two rounds each, stirring only until the streaks disappear. Overmixing makes it tough.
- Spread the batter in the oven, lay the apples over the top in overlapping rows, and crumble the topping mix over everything.
- Set the oven on a shallow bed of coals and put roughly twice as many coals on the lid. Aim for about 350F.
- Bake 40 to 50 minutes. Rotate the oven and the lid a quarter turn every ten minutes so one side does not scorch. It is done when a twig comes out clean.
This started as a home oven cake and needed three changes to work outside. Fresh apples get replaced by dried slices rehydrated in a cup, which cuts the carried weight by most of their volume. The egg and the milk both come as powder, reconstituted with the same half cup of water the original recipe called for. Nothing here needs a cooler.
The coal count is the part people get wrong. A Dutch oven bakes from the lid, not the bottom, so a heavy bed of coals underneath just burns the base while the middle stays raw. Two-thirds up top, one-third below, and turn it regularly. The topping sugar melts into the apples and forms a crust that tells you when it is done.
Packing
Two bags: flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, egg powder, and milk powder in one; topping sugar and cinnamon in the other. Dried apples in a third. Margarine rides in a screw-top tub.
Variations
- Swap half the dried apples for dried pears or raisins.
- A cup of instant pancake mix can stand in for the flour, baking powder, and salt if you are cutting bag count.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/apple-coffee-cake