Dutch Oven Apple Cobbler

I still haven't had a chance to blog about our vacation yet, but this is something I can put up right now. I learned how to make this from my mother-in-law Kathy, and it's become a camping MUST in my book ever since. It's easy and super delicious. (Thanks for letting us borrow your dutch oven, Kathy!) This can be made in a regular oven too, at 350 degrees. I've never made it that way though, so I don't know how long it's supposed to bake.


Dutch Oven Cobbler

2 cans apple pie filling (or fruit variety of your choice)
1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter/margarine

First, get ready to use your oven by getting 20 or so charcoal briquets and forming them into a little pile on the ground where you plan to bake your cobbler. Douse with lighter fluid and light. Let this burn while you prepare your cobbler.

Spread the pie filling on the bottom of your dutch oven. Pour dry cake mix on top. Cut the stick of butter into small pieces and randomly drop on top. It'll look something like this:

(We used dutch oven parchment paper lining for the first time on this trip, and it worked out nicely.)

Once your coals are no longer flaming and turning white, you can use a little shovel (or whatever) to get them arranged. We put about 14 on the bottom, pretty evenly spread out. Then put six on the top, around the edge. Like this:



Like I said, this was my first time doing this, so I could have gotten the coal placement wrong. But it turned out just fine, so I'm not sure how much it matters. Lift the lid every 15 minutes or so to check it. If the middle is boiling and done but the edges aren't (or vice versa) you can just rearrange your coals to put the heat where you want it. Honestly, I think it's hard to screw this up.

This took around 30-40 minutes to bake (but I didn't have a watch on, so I'm just guestimating) and I let it cool for awhile before serving.

We had about a million kids at our campsite when I made this for the second time (and took the pictures) and totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I found this pic online:



This is more brown than I cook mine (and, you know, more blurry) but you get the idea. Yum, yum, yummy!