Hiker Deals

I just watched a great outdoor cooking episode of the Ham on the Street cooking show. Two really tasty-looking recipies, “Phoenix (Orange) Cinnamon Buns” and “Nacho Mama’s S’mores“, can be cooked with the coals of an open fire. I’ve included some modifications below for each recipie. The modifications make the recipies hiking- and backpacking-friendly, especially since Southern California usually doesn’t allow open fires in many camp grounds during our dry summers.

Orange Cinnamon Buns:
The orange cinnamon bun recipie cooks cinnamon roll dough that’s stuffed inside scooped-out orange peels that are wrapped in foil and buried in hot coals. Scooping out the oranges probably takes a bit longer than most of you camp-cooks want to spend prepping, but the peels will stop any burning or drying of the dough and let you just leave the rolls deep in the embers instead of constantly turning and moving them out of the hotspots.

Unfortunately, the cinnamon dough recipie uses milk, so unless you’re lucky enough to be camping outside an RV with a powered ‘fridge replace both the 10 tablespoons of milk and 10 tablespoons of brown sugar with 2/3 cup (about 5 1/2 liquid ounces) of canned condensed milk and an extra half-teaspoon of cinnamon. Even farther in the backcountry or just don’t feel like carrying canned milk? If you’re backpacking, or somewhere hot enough that a tube of biscuit dough won’t even last inside a cooler, try the rewrite of the recipie below for backpacking-friendly orange cinnamon buns, no oranges required:

Backpacking-style Orange Cinnamon Buns Recipie

Mix the following dry ingredients in a gallon-size, zip-lock bag before leaving on the trip (hint, label the bag “Cinnamon Buns” and stick a print-out of the recipie instructions inside it):

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar, white or brown (Stick with white sugar if it’s going to be hot, because brown sugar can get stucky and clump things up.)
• 4 Tablesp. dry powdered milk
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/3 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup walnuts or pecans (optional)

Bring the following ingredients along, each packed separately:

• 2/3 cup warm water (cold water can keep the dough from rising completely, so this means air-temp water during hot summers and half-boiling/half-cold water when it’s getting cold at night)
• 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil (olive and corn oil can be too strong tasing)
• 1/2 tsp. dried orange peel (in the spice aisle)

Cooking Instructions: Mix the water and dried orange peel together first. If it’s colder than 80 degrees out or the water is cold heat it a bit in a pan - cold water keeps the baking soda and powder from working right and can cause the buns to be really dense. The first step also softens up the peel and keeps you from having hard bits in the buns. Feel free to add the peel directly to the dry ingredients bag and skip this step altogether if you’re rushed or happier with the faster, easier school of camp-cooking. Once the water is warm (about body temperature), or if you’ve skipped the earlier step, add all the ingredients together and mix well in the dry ingredient bag.

There are three ways to cooks the buns up, but one involves a “fancy” backpacking oven setup: Personally, I like to mix the dough in a plastic bag, put a twist-tie on loosely, and boil the dough in-bag until it’s done (Dough-in-bag Musts: Use the biggest pot you can find and enough water that the dough bag can almost float, plus use a heavy freezer bag & heat spreader under the pot. Plastic won’t melt in boiling water, but it will if it sits on a bottom-of-the-pan hotspot for several seconds.). The second method is to use of a “backpacking oven” system - you’ll know what I’m talking about if you have one - and bake the whole batch of dough as a single loaf. Finally, the classic backpacking method is to pour a portion of the dough into an oiled skillet and cook pancakes instead of buns or biscuits.

Makes enough for 2 very hungry hikers, or 4-5 campers if it’s not the only thing on the menu.

Nacho-style S’mores:
Cooking s’mores up nacho-style in ingenious. Cooking them in an open skillet cuts down on prep-time, mess, burnt fingers, and serving-size fights (you know: “How come he got the bigger piece?!?”). Plus, it’s a lot faster than roasting marshmallows when the only open flame allowed is from a backpacking stove.

Instead of carrying a cast iron skillet on hikes or backpacking trips you can use any matching skillet and lid from your cook kit and a backpacking stove instead of an open fire. When using one of these lighter steel or aluminum skillets, line the inside-bottom with foil - both to keep the graham crackers on the bottom from over-toasting and to save yourself from scraping off the sticky, gooey, sugary mess in the dark. Place the ingredients in the skillet as-described and top with the lid.

When cooking with a lighter skillet keep the backpacking stove on low, and/or use a heat spreader plate, and/or constantly move the skillet around just above the flames (so no one spot in the skillet heats up completely). Just a few minutes should get everything toasted and melted together.

Photo: lbeefus on Flickr