Ultralight Baking

After a few days on the trail, dehydrated meals can get monotonous. A bit more variety is often desirable and freshly baked bread is a delicious and lightweight option.

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Traditional solutions for baking bread include:

The Outback Oven Ultralite. A bit of a misnomer.
A pot within a pot. The outer pot may be dry or have water in it to create steam.
Bannocks cooked in a fry pan or skillet.

Each of these methods work but require cooking equipment of significant weight. This article presents a novel method for baking bread that requires a minimal amount of equipment in addition to a suitable stove and pot: the 'Oven Bag Oven'. Instead of putting an oven bag inside an oven, the oven bag becomes the oven.

ARTICLE OUTLINE

Introduction
The Oven Bag Oven
Stove
Pot
Oven Bag
Heat Deflector
Cooking Method
Recipes
No-knead Bread
Soda Bread
Fruit Scone

# WORDS: 1380
# PHOTOS: 7

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Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

Author

Posts
Jul 17, 2012 at 7:11 pm #1292091

Stephanie Jordan
Spectator

@maia
Locale: Rocky Mountains

Companion forum thread to:

Ultralight Baking

Jul 17, 2012 at 8:09 pm #1895566

Dan @ Durston Gear
BPL Member

@dandydan
Locale: Canadian Rockies

Clever setup. Nice job.

Jul 18, 2012 at 10:10 am #1895691

Lapsley Hope
Member

@laps

Very good straightforward informative article.
I'll give it a try.
Thanks.

Jul 18, 2012 at 11:19 am #1895711

Alice Hengst
BPL Member

@moondust
Locale: Southern Sierras

Dumplings are a great option if all you have is a pot with a lid and a screw-on-the-canister stove. You can cook them on top of any soup or stew.

Jul 18, 2012 at 11:39 am #1895719

David Lutz
Member

@davidlutz
Locale: Bay Area

Alice – Say more about that!

Jul 18, 2012 at 2:18 pm #1895750

Ryan Jordan
Admin

@ryan
Locale: Central Rockies

This is very intriguing to me. I'd love to try this.

Looks like Baco might be a Euro brand and not available in the US, and Reynolds (de facto oven bag maker here) only makes Large and Turkey sized bags. The large seems about 16" x 20".

Does anyone know of smaller sized oven bags here in the US?

Jul 18, 2012 at 2:31 pm #1895753

Laural Bourque
Member

@lauralbaby
Locale: PNW

Dumplings are just biscuits dumped in soup and boiled, basically.

Jul 18, 2012 at 2:31 pm #1895754

Mark Schultz
Member

@mgschultz

Very innovative! The article did not mention the bakepacker oven, which is lighter than the outback oven, but not light as the cool setup described in this article. The bakepacker oven can be used with any type of stove since the pot serves as the "oven." It's just a separator grill that gets the cooking bag (any freezer bag) off the bottom of the pot, and the baking is down with steam from a small amount of water. At 4oz it seemed excessive to me until I realized the benefit of packing more calories into a bear canister allowing me to go further without resupply. The premixed corn breads, muffin mix, and bisquits pack very tightly with lots of carb calories. I think some small rocks might work as well as this bakepacker device, but I haven't tried it yet. I've only used this on long trips in Yosemite canister country. The small model fits perfectly in the MSR Titan and works great for 2. Left overs (if you have any) make a great snack next morning. I agree, baking in the wild is an awesome treat after a few days on the trail.

http://www.bakepacker.com/

Jul 18, 2012 at 2:38 pm #1895757

Bob Gross
BPL Member

@b-g-2-2
Locale: Silicon Valley

I have a couple of Bakepackers, and I used to use them a lot for group trips. Although it would work for many kinds of bread recipes, it seemed to work best for pre-packaged snack breads that were mixed up with only about 2/3 of the liquid called for.

Hungry backpackers will eat up warm bread almost instantly.

–B.G.–
Author

Posts

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

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