camp meals

Two-Ingredient Campfire Drop Biscuits

Self-rising flour and shelf-stable cream, dropped onto a pan and baked over coals under a foil hood.

calories
390
weight
5 oz
cal / oz
78
protein
6 g
serves
6, scales
prep
5 min
cook
28 min
total time
33 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.

  • Breakfast
  • Campfire coals
  • Grill grate
  • Car camping
  • Basecamp
  • Vegetarian
  • Nut free
  • Real dishes
  • Pre-mix at home
  • Shelf stable
  • Basic

Ingredients

Self-rising flour 2 cups already has leavening and salt in it
Shelf-stable heavy cream 16 oz UHT carton, no refrigeration until opened
Oil or shortening 1 tbsp for greasing the pan

Method

  1. Burn the fire down to coals and set a grate over them. Flames scorch the bottoms before the middles set.
  2. Grease a 13x9 pan. Any metal pan works as long as it fits on the grate.
  3. Put the flour in a gallon freezer bag, pour in the cream, seal, and squeeze until it comes together as a sticky dough. Do not keep working it past that point.
  4. Cut a corner off the bag and squeeze out six mounds onto the pan, spaced apart.
  5. Set the pan on the grate and cover it with a foil hood. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops are dry and firm.
  6. Rotate the pan a half turn halfway through if one side of the fire is running hotter.

Two ingredients, because self-rising flour is already flour plus baking powder plus salt, and cream is already fat plus liquid. That covers everything a biscuit needs. No cutting butter into flour with a cold knife at a picnic table.

The hood is what makes it a bake instead of a fry. A copy-paper box wrapped inside and out in heavy foil and taped, inverted over the pan, traps enough heat to cook the tops. A foil roasting pan turned upside down does the same job and packs flatter. Shelf-stable UHT cream is the substitution that gets this off the fridge and into a food bin.

Packing

Measure the flour into the freezer bag at home. The cream carton rides in the food bin unopened; once opened it needs a cooler or gets used up that morning.

Variations

  • Stir a handful of shredded hard cheese and some black pepper into the flour before the cream goes in.
  • No cream? Whole milk powder mixed with water at double strength, plus 3 tbsp oil, gets you close.
  • The foil hood works for anything else you want to bake on a grate.

https://camprecipes.com/classic-recipes/easy-campfire-biscuits