Real back country dry baking experinece

[Matt Swider]

I just returned from a 3 week hike in the Sierras.  It was myself and a friend.  I planned all the dinners and half the lunches, he planned the other half of the food.  With dinner we had 11 baking nights of the 21.  Four times I baked Jon Fong’s bacon cheese bread, and I also baked 7 cookies.  The bacon cheese bread came out fantastic each time.  The dough rose, it did not burn, and we ate like kings during those four meals, splitting a loaf consisting of 2/3 cu bacon bits, 1.5 oz cheese, 1 cup bisquick, 3T Nido dry milk, and a bit of red pepper flakes, and 1/3 cu water.

On the other hand, the cookies were not as cooperative.  I was using flax seed as an egg substitute, which worked fine at home.  The cookies would rise, but then fall when the heat was removed.  I tried increasing the baking time from 20 to 30 minutes, but no change in the result.  I even tried cooking the last cookie with Esbit instead of my normal Coughlan’s tablets, but the esbit would not stay lit.  The result was always somewhat cooked cookie dough.  It tasted great, but I was really wanting to make a REAL cookie that would rise and stay fluffy.  I guess cooking at 10,000′ altitude when the temperatures are in the 30s and 40s maybe does not lend itself to that.

My setup is a home made cone, an kmart grease pot, the strainer with foil and carbon felt as the lid, and an Epicurean Esbit stove from Flat Cat gear.  I used reflector of foil and/or my circle of aluminum flashing which is slightly smaller than the pot under the Coughlan’s heat source.  I noticed the tablets burned longer at altitude than at home, which suggests lower cooking temps.  Perhaps this was the main reason?  Not sure.

All in all, if I had it to do again likely the only change I would make would be to not bother with the flax seed soaked in water as an egg substitute.  Would have saved some time and work early in the trip.  Later on I abandoned doing this as it did not seem to make a difference in the result.

As a sanity check, I just made one of the recipes here at home I had tried on the trail.  Came out perfect, nice and fluffy.

[Matt Swider]

I forgot to add the cookie recipes I used were Betty Crocker bags which are 17oz.  One bag yields 3 cookies.  Today’s cookie was pumpkin spice (pictured below), which uses 3T of oil and some powdered milk (1T) to simulate the butter.  I also had gingerbread and peanut butter on the trail.  The peanut butter uses only 1T of oil.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

I have found that adding oil to the cookie recipe messes up the dry baking process.  I typically use either no oil or just a teaspoon.  Cookies come out a little more cake like but still pretty darn good.

[Matt Swider]

, Hi Jon, I recall you recommending minimizing the oil, do you just substitue water instead?  Have you had similar experience dry baking at cold and / or alititude?  The recipe comes out perfect here in sunny SoCal, so just wondering what the factors that effect the results are.

thanks, Matt

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

I add as little water as possible, just enough to make the batter/dough stick together.  I haven’t had any problems baking at altitude and have baked at over 13,000′.  I am not sure why oil tends to impedes baking, I discovered this while making brownies.

[Matt Swider]

I haven’t had any problems baking at altitude and have baked at over 13,000′.

Wow, thanks for the tips, look forward to getting back up there to check it out.

 

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