Skillet Oatmeal Cake
A buttermilk oat muffin batter, premixed at home and baked flat in a pan over a low flame.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 9 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- 180 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
- Snack
- Canister stove
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Quick-cooking oats | 1 1/2 cups | quick oats only; rolled stay gritty in a short bake |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 1 cup | |
| Brown sugar | 1/2 cup | dries out in a bag, so break up the lumps before mixing |
| Buttermilk powder | 1/2 cup | replaces the fresh buttermilk |
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp | stands in for two eggs |
| Baking powder | 2 tsp | |
| Baking soda | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Vanilla powder | 1/2 tsp | extract works too, add it with the water |
| Butter or coconut oil | 5 tbsp | 4 tbsp in the batter, 1 for the pan |
| Cold water | 180 ml |
Method
- Melt 4 tbsp of the butter in your pan, pour it off into a mug, and set the pan back on low.
- Dump the dry mix into a bag or bowl. Add the water and the melted butter and stir about twenty strokes. Lumps are fine. Overmixing makes it tough.
- Grease the pan with the last tablespoon and spread the batter to an even half inch.
- Cover with a lid or foil and hold the lowest flame the stove will give you. Fifteen minutes, no peeking for the first ten.
- Check the middle with a twig. If it comes out wet, give it five more minutes off-center on the flame so the bottom does not scorch.
- Cut into four wedges in the pan and eat with a spoon.
This started as an oven muffin recipe, which is useless without an oven. The batter itself is fine on the trail, so it goes into a pan instead of a tin. The buttermilk is the part worth keeping. Its acid reacts with the baking soda for lift, and the tang cuts the sugar. Powdered buttermilk does the same job dry and keeps for a year in a bag.
A covered pan on a very low flame is a crude oven. The trapped steam sets the top while the bottom browns, which is the only way to get the center cooked before the base burns. Quick oats matter here too: in twenty minutes over a stove, whole rolled oats never soften, and you get a cake full of hard flecks. Fat is not optional. Cut the butter and the cake goes dry and sticks to the pan.
Packing
All the dry ingredients go into one quart freezer bag at home. Butter travels in a small screw-top jar. In camp you add water, fat, and heat, and nothing needs measuring.
Variations
- Half a cup of dried blueberries or chocolate chips stirred in at the last moment.
- Swap the cinnamon for cardamom and add orange peel.
- No pan lid: cook it as thick pancakes instead, three minutes a side.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/buttermilk-oatmeal-muffins