The sweet succulent smell of pineapple upside down cake wafting over the Florida campground seeps from a 12” deep Dutch Oven at a distant campsite. It hypnotically draws the hungry participants of a Women In The Outdoors event seeking culinary secrets for delicious camp cooking.
Under the oak trees of Fisheating Creek Campground in Palmdale, Florida, a true master of Dutch Oven cooking, Dave Coleman of Avon Park, Florida, introduces eager outdoorswomen to infinite possibilities for creative camp cooking. They arrive in small focus groups at his campsite picnic table throughout the afternoon and happily consume six scrumptious cakes by the end of the day.
Women Learn Wilderness Survival Skills
Women from Stuart, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers and other cities of Florida drive more than 90 miles to take part in the 1st Annual Fisheating Creek Adventure, a Women in the Outdoors event hosted by the Lakeport Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) in October, 2009.
The 51 women attend daylong workshops learning, or perfecting, outdoor survival skills such as archery, chainsaw operation, geo-caching, self-defense and nature photography after starting their first adventure at 7:30 a.m. with a three hour interpretive canoe trip on historic Fisheating Creek.
The goals of this special NWTF experience is to help women become comfortable in the outdoors, to respect the environment and learn the importance of conservation of wilderness lands. “I think a lot of women are here because they are intimidated by the wildness of nature, and being alone in the wilderness. And some women don’t have spouses who hunt, they just want to develop more outdoor skills and become more comfortable in the wilderness,” says volunteer Cheryl Henderson of Lake Placid, one of the event organizers.
Dutch Oven Cooking
After lunch, the women sample the delicious pineapple upside down cake. Coleman jovially talks about his passion for Dutch Oven cooking. “I own 14 pots and umpteen frying pans and can’t pass one up when I find one at a garage sale,” he says with contagious enthusiasm.
Coleman says he started cooking with Dutch Ovens when he was a boy scout. He took it up as a hobby 30 years ago and now belongs to the Cracker Trail Chapter of the International Dutch Oven Society.
The lesson this day is to learn how to cook with Dutch Ovens and he asks two volunteers to help mix the ingredients of the cake in a 12” deep iron pot in which it will bake for a half hour at 350 degrees heated by burning charcoal.
Coleman instructs the women to line the pot with foil and then drizzle 2 tablespoons of melted butter in the bottom. As they follow his instructions he peppers his talk with salty anecdotes like “those great explorers Lewis and Clark said they would never trade their Dutch Ovens no matter what.” Or, “A Dutch Oven was a requirement for a pioneer going out West.”
The Camp Recipe
Under Coleman’s instruction, the women open two cans of round sliced pineapples The pineapple slices are layered in two rows; and in each circle of the pineapple the women are told to put a bright red maraschino cherry.
“Anything you can make in a conventional oven you can make in a Dutch Oven,” he says with conviction. Coleman seasons his demonstration of Dutch Oven cooking with culinary tips, such as “It’s better to slow cook your meats.”
Next the volunteer cooks sprinkle ½ cup of loose brown sugar over the pineapples. Finally, following the directions on the box, they mix eggs and oil and yellow cake mix together, beat the mixture briskly in a plastic bowl and pour it over the layers of pineapple slices and cherries.
As cooking preparations proceed, Coleman demonstrates how he uses a charcoal chimney starter in which he placed 26 individual cakes of charcoal to heat them up. Now the cake is ready to bake. Wearing welders’ gloves and using tongs, he puts the super hot coals on top of the lid (17) and under the iron pot (8) that he set on top of a metal table made especially for cooking outdoors.
Coleman gives participants a handout entitled Baking Temperature Chart for Dutch Oven Cooking by Lodge Cast Iron and warns that the number of coals to use are precisely calculated to reach the proper temperatures for baking. For example, he says that if you are using an 8” deep oven, it would require 10 coals on top of the lid and 5 coals under the pot to obtain a temperature of 325 degrees.
It only takes 30 minutes to bake the cake but there’s a little more to Dutch Oven cooking than that. The cook needs to turn the pot and turn the lid a half turn the opposite direction every 15 minutes with a metal rod called a lifter. It ensures the heat gets evenly distributed.
Create Your Own Camping Kitchens Using Dutch Ovens
Camp cookery is often messy and sometimes cumbersome. But the Dutch Oven is neatly self-contained. Stews, soups, roasts, vegetables, eggs and bacon, all are easy to cook using this outdoor-style crock-pot. “It’s a combination of a convection oven and a pressure cooker,” says Coleman. For family camping though, just one size Dutch Oven is not enough for a camping kitchen. So, keep watching garage sales and maybe one day your collection will rival that of Dave Coleman’s.
Resources
Women In The Outdoors website, womenintheoutdoors.org
AIC101
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