Campfire Cake (otherwise known as the 1/2, 1, 1 1/2, 2 Cake)

Remember how we went camping a little while back?  No? I don’t blame you, it’s taken me a while to get this post together. I’m lucky I still have the photos as I’d uploaded them to my old computer. That computer has now decided it’s in eternal panic  mode and won’t turn on properly. (I’m not kidding, it’s in a state known as a kernel panic, whatever that means. To be fair, the poor dear was quite ancient).

Thankfully, I hadn’t deleted the pics off my memory card, and since we’d had the foresight to upgrade to a new computer before the old one expired, things haven’t been all that bad :)

Now back to the more important matter of cake.

This is the story how we attempted to bake a cake on our campfire.

Did we succeed? You can be the judge of that :)

I’m sure you’d have heard of the 1,2,3,4 cake by now. If you haven’t, here’s the link to the recipe (courtesy of Paula Deen). The 1,2,3,4 refers to the measurements involved.

I’d read how foolproof the cake was, and of course I needed a really basic recipe that relied on cup measures since I couldn’t carry my digital scales along!

This is how our cake-baking went:

Step1: Build your fireplace

Step 2: Set up the oven. Oops, I've only just realised this photo is sideways. Bear with me.

This is the cake pan I used. I didn't really want to use such a fancy pan but it was the only one I had that would fit properly in the camp oven.

Step 3: Ensure that the oven sits level. You may have to find some rocks for this. Best to do this step before oven becomes too hot to handle.

Step 4: Preheat the oven. It was really hard to see the embers in the bright light of day. Would be easier to control at night.

Step 5: Mix the cake batter. We halved all the measurements

 Don't forget to keep an eye out for intruders who want to steal your food.

 

It's ready to go into the oven!

 Baking time! I didn't realise this at the time, some firewood on the opposite side to where I was sitting (and watching the oven) had flared up, heating the cake too quickly.

So, even though the cake looked ok from the top...

It was, uh, slightly scorched at  the bottom. Plus some of it stuck to the pan.

But, no way were we throwing out cake! After trimming, it looked good enough to eat. (In fact, there's only half here because we'd already eaten a fair few de-carbonised slices by this stage).

 Of course, chocolate icing always helps (will type up recipe soon).

We polished it all off. I must say I'm very impressed with the 1,2,3,4 cake because it not only survived the camp fire, it tasted great!

Next time, I’m packing a simpler cake pan, and baking in the evening so I can actually see the coals properly.

And before I go, Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends who are celebrating!