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How To Bake a Cake in a Dutch Oven w/ Wood Coals
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Aug 24, 2023
To me, baking a cake in a Dutch oven is one of the more difficult things to bake. The added moisture in cake along with the other variables that come with outdoor cooking can be challenging. But not to worry all it takes is practice and knowing what to look for. (edited from original upload to fix sound issues).
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0:00
Hi, glad y'all stopped by camp today
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You know, I've cooked a lot of things in a Dutch oven and I still think to me one of
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the most difficult things to cook directly in a Dutch oven in a piece of cast iron is
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a cake. And there's so many different ways you can cook a cake in a Dutch oven
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A lot of people use an insert where they can get it out. A lot of people are going to use parchment paper
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But we always pre-warm our Dutch oven just a little. Spray it
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Some is good Pam spray. Flour around the outside of there, as you can see
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Knock all this loose flour to the bottom. Dump out the loose
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Sure, we're just using a box cake mix today. But when we do use a box cake, we always put a little dollop of sour cream in there
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because we like to keep the moisture in there. But one thing you've got to remember, that moisture content in there being a little more
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makes this cake a little more difficult to cook. That's why I think that cooking cakes
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might be one of the harder things to cook in a Dutch oven. All right, as you can tell
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we done got some colds around this ground, especially when you're cooking in this kind
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of weather. You can see there's a little moisture in this ground. So I'm always, before I'm going
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to put some colds out here to cook, I'm going to put some out here to dry that ground up
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So when I put my heat out here to cook, I'm not losing it to a wet ground or a wet grassy area
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or something like that. So I'm always going to pre-warm the ground just like I'm pre-warming cast iron if it's
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wet or got some moisture on it. So we're going to put this cake on a tall trivet
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As you can tell, the wind's blowing a little today. So we'll have a little more trouble than you would if you was just cooking without any
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wind at all. And different coal make different heat. Today we're using a little mixture of mesquite and everything else
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So let's put this thing on the fire, right gentle like. We're gonna get us some coals and have us some cake
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We reached in Ol Bertha and got us some coals and we gonna sift that ash out of there cause this ol shovel got plenty of holes in it This is a mixture of a little of everything we burning this morning And you can see we got some coals around here
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They're a little heavier than they would be if this was all mesquite or all a good red oak or a white oak
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So we're going a little heavier today because some of this stuff might be cottonwood, might be elm, might be willow
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So we're going to place this around the outside edge of that trivet, get us some and put it
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on top. We're going to cook this cake about as slow as we can
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Alright, you can see we've got these coals not under this cake, but around the outside
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edge of that trivet. Now this old wood is pretty warm right now, but as this old wind is blowing it, we're taking
3:02
some of that heat away. But the heat over here on this side of the oven, it's going to be hot because that breeze
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is taking it in that direction. As you can see, this old shovel got some holes in it
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We use it to sift that ash out because we're wanting to put a live hot coal on here, not
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a bunch of ash. All it does is insulate. It doesn't cook. You can see this old short trivet here, and if we had put that on there, look how much
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closer we would have been to them coals. That old cake had been so close you would have burnt the bottom of it before you even
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knew it. That's why we're up on top of tall trivet. The reason we're cooking it in this deep 12 today, if you was putting this in a shallow
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oven, when this cake rolls, you would be right up against it
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We got room in here for this cake to grow. gonna get pretty close to there that's why we got it in a deep oven that way
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we've got that space where we're not as apt to burn the top of that crust one
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thing you got to remember when you're cooking these cakes we got to rotate
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often because we want to even out any hot spot that we might have the way that breeze is going as you can tell it floating that away This side of this oven is hotter than this side because this heat is blowing away from it
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So always make sure if you're in a windy condition, you don't have a windshield or something out here
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rotate your oven more if the wind is blowing. We've had this old cake cooking
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We've rotated it quite a bit because this old wind is blowing
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And any time you take a lid off when that wind is blowing, let's take it off on the
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downwind side so we ain't blowing something in there. You can already see we're beginning to get separation on this old cake
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So we're going to slow it down just a little. Get it off that bottom heat for a while
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Let this thing slow down. Slow like a frog walking. The reason we take this cake on and off so much, wind blowing like it is today, is we're
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slowing this process down. I want that cake to cook as even as it can and when you cook it and you don't rotate
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it enough and the wind is blowing, you can burn the bottom, cook the outside edges and
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the top to where you think it looks pretty good, give it a little jiggle like that and
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when you see it shaking like a jello, hey it's still raw in the middle
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That's the reason we're slowing this process down. We've got the heat on the top which won't be there much longer
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We'll slow that down too. We're going to put it back on that old bottom
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We're going to get this cake where when you fill up it or you stick a stick in it, we
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know it's done. Put this back on this heat for just a minute or two more
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Get this old cake just right. So let's take it off because I think we're nearly there to do
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You notice we got a trivet sitting here. Never take a lid off and set it in the dirt
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You can done see we've got quite a bit of separation pulling away from here
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So when these cakes pull like that or any baked good, that old bottom's trying to tell you something
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It's getting pretty close to done. You can see the spring here in this cake We not far off We gonna brown this cake a little more on top slow that bottom down that why we got it off here but we still got that top heat we don like much what do you check your cakes within the house y
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time looking for a toothpick or something you can't never find one if
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you're mother nature's kitchen he's always a stick we're gonna put this
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thing in there just like you would any other cake and watch this it's clean as a whistle
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this cake is done folks we're going to let this thing cool and you got to let it cool slowly
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when it's good and cool we'll put a pie plate on here turn that oven over give it a spanking one
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time that cake will fall over we'll turn it over one more time put us some icing on there we'll
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have cake it's time for the moment of truth got us an old plate here fits right in that 12 inch
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oven we're gonna turn this thing over give it a little pat like that and think oh my gosh i wonder
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what's come out of there oh that's busted it so because we're going to cut that off we're going to show them don't do what
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this is what the people need to see reality ready yeah what y'all thinks under there
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burnt, beyond recognition, good cake. I'm afraid to look. It is a cake. Now when you
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put flour in the bottom of an oven, you got it sealed around here, flour is the first thing
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going to burn. Gives us a little insulation, but also lets that cake slide out. Any good
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cake decorator will tell you, we're going to take a knife, we're going to cut that little
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ground part off. Another plate, flip it back over here. We're gonna ice that rascal. We're
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gonna have cake. Wish y'alls here. I'm finna put me some icing on and we're gonna eat it. Y'all take care
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