Sunrise Cinnamon Skillet Cake
A cinnamon sugar cake baked in a dutch oven over coals, mixed from a bag you filled at home.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 113
- protein
- 9 g
- serves
- 7, 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.
- Breakfast
- Dessert
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 2 1/4 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1 cup | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1 tbsp | |
| Baking soda | 1 tsp | |
| Baking powder | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Powdered buttermilk | 1/4 cup | rehydrates with 1 cup water, no cooler needed |
| Powdered whole egg | 2 tbsp | or one real egg if you are car camping with a cooler |
| Vegetable oil | 3/4 cup | |
| Water | 1 cup | |
| Chopped nuts | 1 cup | pecans, walnuts, or almonds, rough chopped |
Method
- Build a fire and burn it down to coals, or light 25 charcoal briquettes and wait for grey ash.
- Dump the dry mix into a 12-inch dutch oven. Pour in the oil and 240 ml of water and stir with a long spoon until no dry flour is left. Do not beat it.
- Push the batter flat with the back of the spoon. Scatter the nuts over the top.
- Lid on. Put 17 coals on the lid and 8 underneath, spread in a ring, not a pile. That is roughly 350F.
- Bake 30 minutes. Rotate the oven a quarter turn and the lid the opposite way every 10 minutes so it does not scorch on one side.
- Check with a stick or knife in the middle. Clean means done. Lift the lid away from you so ash and condensation fall outside the pot.
The original is a buttermilk cake, which means a fridge and a carton you will not finish. Powdered buttermilk and powdered egg do the same job out of a bag, and they are what make this a camp recipe instead of a kitchen recipe hauled outdoors. The acid in the buttermilk powder is not decoration: it is what the baking soda reacts with, so do not swap in plain milk powder without adding an acid.
Heat control is the whole game. Coals on top and few underneath means the cake bakes rather than fries, and the rotating keeps the hot spot from parking in one place for half an hour. Mix it just until the flour disappears. Stir it longer and you get a tough, rubbery slab.
Packing
Flour, sugar, cinnamon, soda, powder, salt, buttermilk powder, and egg powder all go in one bag at home. Nuts ride in their own bag so they stay whole. Oil in a leakproof bottle inside a second bag.
Variations
- Swap half the nuts for dried apple and add another 1/2 tsp cinnamon.
- No dutch oven: line a foil pan, cover tight with foil, and bake it on a grill grate over low coals for about the same time.
- Skip the nuts for a nut-free version and dust the top with cinnamon sugar instead.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/sunrise_cake-1956.asp