Tropical Berry Mango Cobbler and Basic Campfire Baking in a Dutch Oven
Summer vacation is here and even if you can't make it to the beach, you can a tropical paradise home with some great Dutch-oven awesomeness! Our basic directions for baking in a Dutch Oven fire-side are below, following the regular home-baking version.
If you take this recipe camping, use a 14 inch deep Dutch oven with a lipped cover. Make the filling in your Dutch Oven according to the directions over 10 hot coals and then top the fruit mixture in the Dutch oven with the cobbler mixture. Place your lid on and then top with 15-20 coals and bake as directed.*
Tropical Mango-berry Cobbler
Filling
2 cups frozen mango chunks
1 cup chopped frozen Strawberries
1 cup frozen blackberries
1/4 cup Country Time™ lemonade powder
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tsp almond extract
Tropical Lime Cobbler topping
2 cups Texas Pure Milling Unbleached Baking Mix
½ cup coconut flakes
½ cup sugar
2 tsp lime zest
2/3 cup coconut milk
Directions:
Combine fruit mixture with 1/2 cups water. Mix well. Simmer over low heat 10 minutes until fruit is tender and mixture is thick.
Allow to cool about 10 minutes more. Combine cobbler topping ingredients. In a medium bowl, combine topping mixture with 2/3 cup coconut milk just until combined.
Do not over mix. Preheat your oven to 350°. Put the thickened mango mixture in a 2 quart casserole dish.
Drop the cobbler topping mixture on the fruit mixture. Bake in a pre-heated oven 40-45 minutes until well cooked. We served it warm drizzled with caramel sauce.
*Basic Baking in a Dutch Oven:
It turns out there is a very technical way of knowing the internal temperature of a Dutch oven.
We use a Lodge Camp Dutch Oven 14 Inch wide and 5 inches deep. It is just about the perfect size for a 9 inch pie pan or pan of dinner rolls. The deeper 5-inch pan is preferred for baking.
To determine the temperature of the oven, you use what is called, "the rule of 4." If the oven is 14 inches, you subtract 4. You will need 10 coals on the bottom of the Dutch oven and twice that many on top of the Dutch oven to get the internal temperature to 325 degrees (preheating 20 minutes). Adding 5-7 minutes to the baking time on most items.
Add two coals to the bottom and 4 to the top for every additional 25 degrees you want inside your oven. So...for 400 degrees we would have added 4 to the bottom and 8 to the top.
Once hot, use a metal hook to take off the lid, with the coals still on top: A fruit pie generally takes about 45 minutes to bake (50-55) in the Dutch oven. Pizza or rolls, 30-35 minutes.
