Skillet Cornbread for Camp
Cornmeal batter mixed in a bag and baked in a covered skillet or dutch oven over coals.
- calories
- 270
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 77
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 9, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 30 min
- total time
- 40 min
- water
- 240 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.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Cornmeal | 1 1/2 cups | medium grind, not corn flour |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 1 cup | |
| Granulated sugar | 1/3 cup | |
| Light brown sugar | 1/3 cup | packed |
| Powdered buttermilk | 1/2 cup | replaces 1 cup fresh buttermilk |
| Powdered whole eggs | 3 tbsp | stands in for 2 eggs |
| Baking soda | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Butter or shortening | 1/2 cup | butter keeps a few days out of a cooler; shortening keeps indefinitely |
| Water | 1 cup |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady heat, not flame.
- Melt the butter in the dutch oven or a deep skillet, then pour most of it into a cup and leave the pan greased.
- Pour the dry premix into a gallon freezer bag. Add 1 cup of cold water and the melted butter, seal, and squeeze until the lumps are mostly gone. Do not keep working it past that point.
- Snip a corner off the bag and squeeze the batter into the hot greased pan.
- Lid on. Set the pan on a thin bed of coals and shovel more coals onto the lid, about twice as many on top as underneath.
- Bake 22 to 30 minutes. Rotate the pan a quarter turn every eight minutes and rotate the lid the other way so no one spot scorches.
- It is done when a twig comes out of the middle clean. Pull the coals off the lid before you check or you will dump ash on it.
Cornbread is one of the few baked goods worth doing over a fire, because it forgives uneven heat. The original calls for fresh buttermilk and whole eggs. Both become powder here, which changes nothing about the crumb and removes the cooler from the equation entirely.
The soda needs acid to work, and that is what the buttermilk powder is for once it hits water. Mix only until the dry streaks disappear. Overworked batter goes tough, and a fire gives you no way to hide it. Coals on the lid are what browns the top; heat from below alone will burn the bottom before the center sets.
Packing
Cornmeal, flour, both sugars, buttermilk powder, egg powder, soda, and salt all go in one gallon bag at home, labeled with the water and fat amounts. The bag is also the mixing bowl, so buy the sturdy kind. Butter rides in a screw-top tub.
Variations
- Stir a handful of dried jalapeno flakes and a crumbled hard cheese into the dry mix.
- Drop the sugars to 2 tablespoons total if you are serving this with chili instead of jam.
- No dutch oven: bake in a foil pan set on a grill grate with a foil tent over it, same timing.
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/the-best-chili-and-cornbread