Baking on the Trail

Nice Greg! I can definitely dig it.

Greg,

Great job! I use those throw-a-way AL pans to bake in all the time. I make a type of dutch oven like set up. I perfer the baking this ay over steam, just a preference.
I do have a steam set up when I am solo, but dry baking is a fun way to help pass the time when I am out with my kids.
once again, outstanding fab work.

Regards,
John

John,
Good to know. I only had two mixes to work with, so went with what I know best. But I really want to do some dry baking. I've done it before and prefer the resulting color and texture. I just need to make up some more mix.

How do you heat your DO? How do you gage temps?

I'll be using this set up inside the Ti 1.3L (without the foil insulator on the lid) and just guessing at time and temperature.

How well does the muffin come out of the tin? How many times can you use it before replacing it?

This was for "steam baking"…. don't know yet about "dry baking"…

I lightly oiled the pan before adding the batter.
After baking it came out clean. A crumb or two stuck.
I wiped it out with a paper towel between bakes.

So, maybe 50?
As long as I don't step on it.

I start with standard steam baking. Titanium 0.9L cook pot, several pebbles in the bottom, half-inch of water, titanium foil disk with holes. That goes on top of a butane stove for heat. On the disk, I place three aluminum foil cupcake cups with snack bread dough, then put the lid on the pot. The steam baking goes for 15 minutes or so, but then I let all of the water boil off, vent the steam, and turn up the flame on the stove. This does more convection heating. If it were any other metal, it would hurt the metal, but not titanium. That gives it a tiny bit of crust over ten minutes. The aluminum foil cups are reusable or not.

–B.G.–

Greg,
That is a sweet setup – and you pot/lid turned out awesome. I own an Outback oven and love it for some killer pizza but it's a bit heavy for regular use. Yours is much lighter…

I use a baking/wax paper in my pot instead of oiling it and it literally leaves no mess or cleanup afterwards. It does add another part to the system, but might be worth a try if food is getting stuck in the folds and such. Just a thought.

Very nice work.

I haven't tried this…looks awesome. I do love me some fresh bread, and it always seems to taste better outdoors. Well…I think most things do. :)

Do you think this would work with doubled up tin foil, shaped to order?

Dug
http://thf2.wordpress.com

Dug,
This stuff isn't much heavier than two sheets of heavy duty foil. The stiffness is nice just for handling, plus it is very re-usable.

I think with heavy duty foil you'd only get one shot.

But – hey – try it.

Greg, can you show your simmering technique? A picture of it in action would be great

Tad,
This thread covers simmering as well. Take a look at the 5th post. If controllable simmering is needed for “real” cooking, consider the PackaFeather stove shown with the Caldera Cone.

Here is my approach –

On the left is a Caldera Cone 12-10 stove.

Next is a snuffer made from the bottom of a pop can, with slits up the side, burnished to “enlarge” it for a loose fit, and a ‘domed” bottom to match the stove shape for better nesting.

Next is my simmer cap, a chicken pot pie foil tin, formed over the bottom of a pop can, then slotted with an exacto knife, with the “tab” left attached. (I marked it in black to make it easier to see.)

By raising or lowering the tab I have a little bit of adjustability in the simmer heat.

A foil simmer cap will last me a season, before it gets melted or otherwise destroyed. It takes about 5 minutes to make a new one.

Or you could make a pop can simmer cap for more durability.

For a while I used the simmer cap as a snuffer, but on more than one occasion nearly lost my eyebrows blowing into boiling, flaming alcohol – NOT recommended.

The simmer cap fits over the snuffer, the snuffer fits over the stove, and they all fit in my Heinie, along with the Cone.

Edit: An “action shot” isn’t worth much, as you can’t see the flame.

Greg, this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks-
I didn't think that putting a loose cap with a slit over the CC stove would allow it to simmer. I just thought I would snuff out the stove (like a snuffer). I will definitely have to try this.

I use to have the Packafeather, but really didn't use its "features" and I like the CC stove much better.

Tad,
I start the 12-10 in typical fashion to let it and the alcohol warm up, then gently drop the simmer cap in place.

Sometimes it will snuff the flame, requiring a re-light, with the simmer cap in place. But typically, if I set it in place somewhat slowly so as not to "puff" out the flame, all is well.

Hi,

I tried steam baking with 10-12 stove + CC with Evernew pasta pot using stove and baking pan in same fashion as greg23 suggested. But I didn't put the lid on the inner baking pan and the muffin (the part that raised above the inner pan) was all moist. My question is does the lid on the inner baking pan prevent whatever is baking from getting all wet since there's lots of water inside the baking pot and how much batter you guys put inside the inner baking pan?

Obviosuly my muffins were to big once done since they raised well above the inner pan,
but they were very good indeed despite a bit moist top:)

Thanks!

Cheers

There are two basic methods for trail baking, wet (steam) and dry. It sounds like you went down the wet route, but it got too wet.

Within the wet (steam) baking method, one way is to use a plastic bag to hold the wet batter, and that is placed on some sort of an elevated metal steamer tray within the cook pot. That way, the steam heat surrounds the plastic bag, but the steam moisture doesn't actually get onto the batter. Still, the bread tends to be rather soft. If you start with batter that is a little dry, this works.

The other wet method skips the plastic bag, so the moisture gets on the batter more. Often you can start with the wet method, but then let the cook pot boil dry, so the last part of the process is more of a dry baking. That way you might get a firmer crust on the bread.

–B.G.–

Hi,
thanks Bob. Yes I went the wet route without plastic bag. I made inner baking pan from Alu foil
and put the batter in it and everything was placed into the pot.

How much water should I put into the pot? Because once muffin was done there was still some water left. I guess I should have remove the water and place the pot on the stove again to steam out the remaining moisture, but I haven't placed any pebbles under the inner baking pan so I think muffin would burn where it sits directly on the heated pot.

Will try what you recomended and will place stone or two under the inner baking pan to lift it up more.

Cheers

The modified pie pan looks like a great idea. I'll definitely try it. I use the Caldera Cone (ti tri) with the outback oven to bake pizza, biscuits, and bread. I made a simmer ring to stop down the flame, in the form of a disk that fits over the top of the stove. For a week end hike, its worth carrying some extra weight because the pack weight is less anyway, due to less food. For a longer hike, its also worth it to add some tasty food to the menu, for something to look forward to. My trail cooking is often for two, so we split the weight anywah.

blog post on simmer ring for Trail Designs stove, plus baking with the outback oven:

http://backpackingtechnology.com/food-and-cooking/the-outback-oven-used-with-the-caldera-cone-stove-and-windscreen/