We recently celebrated Ryan’s birthday on the road, and I always love to bake him something delicious and sinful for his big day. This year I thought I’d try out a recipe that I found in the cookbook that I got with my Lodge cast iron dutch oven for easy Peach Cobbler. It was painfully easy, but there are a few modifications that I’d suggest to make it even tastier, and I goofed a bit and didn’t follow it exactly anyways (oops!). I normally prefer to bake things from scratch but it’s great to have an easy go-to recipe that you can use with some pre-made ingredients. Plus, calories don’t count on your birthday!
Ingredients:
- Prepackaged box of your favorite cake mix. I used Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake Mix.
- Whatever ingredients you need to make the cake – in my case it was 3 eggs, 1/3 cup of vegetable oil and 1 cup of water.
- Two cans of peach slices in syrup
- 3 tablespoons of butter
- Cinnamon for dusting on top of the cobbler
Preparation:
Where I went wrong for the Lodge recipe is that I actually combined the ingredients to bake the cake when that recipe called for simply sprinkling the dry cake mix (i.e. no eggs, oil and water) on top of the peaches. I’m not sure how it would turn out if I’d followed their instructions, but our cobbler turned out very cake-like. To balance that out, I’d suggest adding lots more peaches. I like my cobbler more on the fruit side and less on the cake side, but if it must be covered in delicious cake, why fight it?! If you have fresh peaches, I would definitely slice those up and add them. I prefer the tartness of fresh peaches to the overly sweet canned slices, so that’s a variation I’d make in the future. This recipe was meant to be quick and easy, but I always prefer fresh fruits and veggies where you can swing it. Of course on a camping trip that’s not always possible so use what you have!
- Light 30 charcoals and allow them to heat up – they will be ready when they are no longer alight or smoking and they are gray rather than black.
- Combine dry cake mix with eggs, oil and water according to instructions for your particular mix. Whisk until thoroughly combined and set aside mixture.
- Pour peaches into bottom of dutch oven.
- Pour cake mix on top of peaches and sprinkle with cinnamon to your liking.
- Place the lid on the dutch oven and set the oven over 10 of the hot coals. Place the remaining 20 coals evenly over the lid of the dutch oven.
- Allow the cobbler to bake in the dutch oven for 45 minutes. I checked the cobbler after about 30 minutes and it was still a bit juicy because of the syrup from the canned peaches. If you use more fresh peaches you may not need to cook it as long. The goal is the have a nice moist but firm cake atop the peaches that are still a little bit juicy.
- Spread the butter on top of the cobbler so that it melts evenly as the cobbler cake is cooling. Allow it to cool for 5 minutes and serve warm. We did not have any ice cream because we were in the forest without a freezer. But this would be amazing with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top!
Enjoy!
BY Jackie
BLOGGED FROM Anchorage, Alaska, USA
