Pie pan dutch oven

[DSW]

I learned this years ago from my scoutmaster while I lived out in the state of Wa. It's a simple home made dutch oven well suited for backpacking.

 

Materials:
3 steel pie pans ( you could use larger cake pans but the handles on the pie pans make good lifting points)
2 1"L 5/16" stove bolts. Look like a carriage bolt but with a screw driver slot and no square part on the bolt.
2 5/16" wing nuts. SS preferred.
3 large 60d nails or 3 short pieces of rebar
3 nickels
disposable alum pie tin.

 

 

 

 

 

Drill a 5/16" hole thru all the handles so that they can be stacked and secured for storage.

 

 

 

Drill 2 5/16" holes thru the bottom of 2 of the pans with them stacked back to back. This will make your lid.

 

 

[DSW]

Now how to use it, and a simple recipe for a cobbler.

Drive the 3 nails in the ground in a triangle formation that the bottom pan will sit on. Place 15 burning charcoal brickettes under the bottom around the nails. The nails keep the coals from directly touching the pan. 9 burning charcoal brickettes will go in the top of the lid.

Place 3 nickel in the bottom of the oven. this will keep the alum pan off the bottom and give you an air space.

 

 

Take your disposable alum pan. In this I put part of a can of pie filling, your favorite flavor, in 1st. then top with a box of dry cake mix. Put a small pat of butter on top of the cake mix. Place this into the bottom pan.

 

 

 

 

Use a pair of welding gloves to lift the lid with the coals. Put the lid on top and cook till the top is golden brown. gloves allow you to see how its cooking and the top pan keeps the ashes out of the oven, well most of them any ways.

 

 

It has been awhile since I have done this so I may be wrong on the number of charcoal briquettes that works best for heat. You need about 2x as many on the bottom as the top. I can't remember exactly how much goes in the pan as far as ingredients. I would use this and a full size dutch oven so I cant remember how much went in each size. I think the full size dutch oven used 1 can and 1 box to make a cobbler.

I have cooked pizza it this, biscuits, baked apples (you have to slice them up), Pot pies (the frozen store bought ones), and I can't remember what else.

As I said before I have seen them made with larger cake pans also. I would add side handles to those if the pans don't have them. Simple store bought steel screen door handles and some nuts and bolts would work.

Any questions feel free to ask away. Just some thing this eagle scout picked up in the pacific north west. I had a group of young scouts take 1st prize in cooking at the national jamboree years ago using about 8 of these to do a cooking demonstration.

 

 

 

 

[Michael Cochran]

Thanks for sharing this, DSW. Your mention in the other thread had me interested in this and now I can say I'm gonna have to try it.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Getting a bit hard to find the steel pie pans around here, wher did you sirce them (been half hartaly looking for a couple of months for just this reason) you do relise that as blacksmiths, rivits and forged handles might be more approriate?! Lol. I find a small pair of vice grips or a multitool to trump the gloves, mutiperpose, les bulk. 

Now that the "monsoons" have recedded hear in Oklihoma it's time to inraduce Sandy to the fine art of horse camping. 

[DSW]

This one was made back around 1985 or so while I was still in Scouts. To be honest I haven't searched for steel pie pans much since probably the late 80's early 90's when I was making them with Scouts. I have gotten steel cake pans though, but not in the last 5 years. I see the steel pans semi regularly at the Goodwill thrift stores and places like that though. If they are getting harder to find, I may have to pick up some next time I see them.

 

A quick look on Google showed a bunch of steel pie pans, but I didn't see any with the handles like mine. Steel screen door handles like for wood doors would easily solve that problem, but I'd just weld some steel tabs on ones myself since I have all the welding gear. Heavy alum pans would also work, but you'd have to adjust the cooking times due to the heat conduction with alum.

 

I may have to do a bit of searching at the local stores and see if I can't find a more modern solution if the pans with handles aren't readily available any longer.

[Charles R. Stevens]

I might have to look at stainless bowl/plates from the camping store

[DSW]

Only thing I see with those is that the disposable pie pans may not fit. That was one of the nice things with these as there was minimal clean up afterwards, and the air gap helped keep things from burning like they some times did in a conventional cast iron dutch oven.

[Charles R. Stevens]

True enugh, may have to go and check out the restraunt supply

[Frosty]

Check Wallmart, they carry a refreshingly "normal" bunch of baking pans and I've seen a good sized selection of pie pans last time I walked the isle.

Thanks for the dutch oven, it's SO very Boy Scout! Dad made us pack HIS cast, griddle, skillet and iron dutch oven. even spreading it around it was all HEAVY.

I had one of the nested mess kits and if a person was careful you could bake in it but a moment's inattention and your mess kit was a puddle.

I'm thinking of all the really yummy things a person could make in the pie pan dutch oven from packaged stuff. Zataran's rice mixes, Rice a Rone, I can't think of the maker of all the scalloped potato mixes. Cookies!!! Heck, angel food cake is sugar, flour, egg white and a LITTLE water.

Cool beans! Thanks, I know a bunch of kids at Church who're going to LOVE this at camp this summer!

Frosty The Lucky.

[DSW]

Have fun Frosty. Post up some picts of the kids with them if you remember. That's the whole point of this. To spread the info around to others who may like it.

 

I've done frozen pot pies in one in the past. For the cooking demo, I brought out some pizza dough and a ton of toppings and sauce and the kids all did individual pizzas. Besides baked apples, we did a number of different deserts. The whole idea was to get them away from hot dogs on a stick, or burgers and show them that doing something different didn't have to be difficult and they could have all sorts of tasty stuff with a little thought. I'll admit most of my scouting career dinners weren't all that exciting or original. At least up until my last year. One of the scouts in our troop went to cooking school over the summer before his senior year and when he came back he brought all sorts of interesting ideas for meals with him.

[Frosty]

One of our first night dinner standards in the Scouts was THE stuffed baked tater. You hollow/core a baker and stuff it with tasty stuff, I liked hamburger, onion, salt pepper and a little onion soup. Plug the ends, wrap in aluminum foil and freeze it. You roll it in your sleeping bag for the drive and hike in, then for dinner you stand it next to the fire. Too close and it burns, I don't think anybody was ever able to eat something they buried in the coals. Before long the smell of dinner called and we'd open our dinners and chow down. It's almost impossible to over cook so long as it's not too close to the fire. That way everybody got to eat together.

We'd all sit around and share our stuffed tater, everybody's was different and gooooood. GREAT memories.

Do you ever bake bread in a coffee can? Mother'd mix up cinnamon raisin bread, we'd add water to make dough let it raise while the taters baked and have it hot with butter for desert.

One of the adults showed us the "bean hole," an area in the fire ring that was just a little larger than the dutch oven (We ALL hated carrying in) and not too close to the fire. The dutch oven rested on a couple rocks so heat could circulate under it, kind of like the nickles under the pie plate. You control the temp in the pot by blocking or widening the opening to the fire. Nothing as good as REAL campfire baked Boy Scout weeny beany!

Ever make beef jerky stew? Pretty darned good grub, especially with modern dry ingredients to go with.

Frosty The Lucky.

[DSW]

This may end up turning into a Scout dinner recipe thread. LOL   Not that it's a bad thing.

 

Never did the stuffed potatoes thing, Sounds good. I did plain baked potatoes once or twice. Never did much if any baking. They did the reflector oven stuff at summer camp for the cooking merit badge class. My 1st troop had a bunch of cast iron dutch ovens, but they hardly ever used them because no one wanted to haul them. In my 2nd troop out in Washington, we really didn't have any of the dutch ovens. One of the dads did and it came along occasionally, but usually just did cobbler or some other desert for the patrol he was with that weekend.

 

We did do the salmon in foil bag stuff. (It was out near Seattle) where you put all the veggies in with the salmon  with spices and butter and double wrap it in foil and put that in the ashes to cook on a number of occasions. Most of our scouts came from military families, so we did a number of "survival" camping trips where we had to live ff the land out there, catching fish with hand lines on the dock, finding wild berries, trying to grab crabs off the pilings or digging clams or hunting for oysters at low tide. On one occasion those of us going for our Survival Merit Badge were handed a live rabbit or chicken for each pair of scouts for dinner. That dad was a Navy Seal, so everything we got to use for the weekend had to fit in a small metal coffee can, other than the clothes on our back.

[Frosty]

I was a scout in southern Cal in the 60's so we didn't get fish and only got to camp where fishing was possible a couple times. Crappy are too bony for city kids (like I was) to want to eat. I know I didn't like crappy. <shudder>

It wasn't till I was doing field work on the drill crew I got good at campfire cooking. Probably the hardest thing to get folk to realize is the difference between a campfire and a cook fire. I used to make my cook fire with a few scoops of coals from the camp fire and working in the field we never kept a campfire going long enough to make a bean hole work.

Small potatoes chicken egg size +/- roast nicely in about 15 mins on a stick propped next to the fire. At the distance you can hold an open palm to for maybe 10 seconds. Gotta turn them every couple minutes but it's fast and easy.

We toasted canned bacon on sticks one time in the scouts, the grease tends to make the fire flare and get the grownups all excited. One strip of bacon in the stuffed tater is mmm mmm good. Too many and the tater gets too greasy.

Baked biscuits on sticks over the fire too. You can wrap it around hot dogs or slivers of canned ham. Mix cheese in is good of course ham and cheese is terrific. I remember one of the scout masters trying to cook an egg in his biscuit though I don't recall how well it turned out.

Another good place to bake biscuit dough is on clean hot rocks next to the fire.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Around here all wally world stocks is class pie pans and steel cake pans, not a lot of luck with other stores either. Still have to make it over to the restraunt supply (live in the sticks, so its 20 one way, 30 another and 50 in another direstion, lol. 

Came across an exelent book, "Cooking with fire" Paula Marcoux. She is a food historian and archioligest, starts with a stick ( marshmelow and then cheese) and ends with a horno (bread, and everyting else you can bake) an eye opener that gets you much farther than the foil pouch and romin noodle. 

I have done chiken, steak and damper directly on to coals.  Flabergasted the grandbabys dad who was having delusions if being a grill master (the coals cool in contact with the food, and there is no notible ash, grit of charcoal). Try white ashes as a replacement for baking powder, works very well. some of the "cool" campfire cooking tricks are great for car camping, but the best are the ones that get you away from the god owfle "boil everything, high carb camlers diet" when packing it in on your back or your horse. 

[Frosty]

Uh huh, I thought so too when looking for jumbo muffin pans that cost less than $36.00 ea. at the "special" cooking stuff store. The Wasilla Wally world has all the "special" pots and pans up front and on another isle there are the plain jane ones. Several sizes of steel pie pans, sq. rd. rectangular, etc. cake pans, steel cookie sheets,  on and on. When was the last time you saw a steel bundt pan?

The fancy high dollar stuff was out where it's easy to see and the plane Jane stuff was around a corner a couple isles back. Then there's the, "as seen on TV!!" isles which are in line with the entry for some reason.

Oh, Wally's had the Cephalon $30.00+ muffin pans and other high dollar cookware but on the isle of regular baking wares jumbo tins were $6.00 ea. They are a little cheaper for Kitchenaid but not a lot. I LOVE my Kitchenaid mixer, it's a beast.

You live in interesting sticks Charles, it's 20 miles one way and 30 miles the other? Did you walk to school, through shoulder deep snow, 5 miles, uphill both ways like Dad too?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Chickasha is 20 miles west (kids live there soits kind of a twofer to shop there) Pauls Vally is 30 miles east (kitchen supply and a friend that owns an auto salvage, so unless I need a less than new car part (reat axle from a front wheel drive for a horse cart or trailer, look at the doge miny vans, older ones have leaf springs!) 40 miles noth to Norman (prety much the closest real city and Sandy comutes to work there any way)

they must cook from scratch more in Alaska, everything but steel Pie pans at the 3 wally worleds, 1 target and 6 doller stores in a reasnable range. Now as I have only been "1/2 heartedly" looking for the pans (couple of feet of rain and a late spring has kertailed any camping with my less than die hard lover and friends) but now I need to get off my but and find me 3. Traditinaly they have also made my preferd camp plate as well, but I like a coffee can for a billy... 

[Frosty]

I don't know how folk cook around here, we seem to have more fast food joints than real food or super markets. Heck, it's been a couple months since I saw pie pans at Wally's so they may not carry them now. It's all up to corporate bean counters. I use mostly glass pans to bake in.

You guys have been nearly drowned out this season. I hope you and yours aren't suffering too much from the flooding. There've been some real horror stories coming out of Texas.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

I live on high ground, and last year did some work to corect some dranige inues my exwife created (there is a reason the drive way should be higher than the barditch) but it is funny that a desert rat has to explane to these folks about flashflooding and staing the hell out of the water, especialy the fast flowing stuff.  Did have to have the gills and fins that the horses sprouted amputated tho.

[Frosty]

Naw, nobody knows flash floods like a desert rat though I am a little shocked every time I run across someone who doesn't understand which way water flows. A good friend used to have a neighbor who "claimed" to be a hydrological engineer and ran the drain hose UPHILL from his house and complained about everybody who built a house within a mile or so causing the flooding in HIS. <sigh> He was also the same guy who installed his septic tank and leech field within about 50' of a lake where water table was typically +2". Folks building houses anywhere else on the lake were the problem there too. He actually kept taking people to court over it.

Any idea how hard is was to get the Dept. of health to deal with the idiot? Seriously it took a phone call to the Governor's secretary! Well, maybe suggesting my next call would be to TV news MIGHT have had something to do with the reaction time. You should've seen the scurrying of office vermin then. There were more really worried suits running around trying to figure out how to dodge responsibility than you'd believe.

A guy can't work for the gvt. very long without learning how to wring some action out of the mooks.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[arkie]

I'll try to make this short...

One of the Boy Scouts in our troop wanted to work on his cooking badge on a camp out in the woods.  He didn't have a cast iron dutch oven, so he asked the gnarly old scoutmaster if he could borrow his.  Reluctantly, the old scoutmaster agreed..."just don't mess it up" he told the kid.  Well, the kid was scared to damage the 30 yr. old, perfectly seasoned cast iron dutch oven, so he lined it with aluminum foil.  He was going to make a cheese souflee'......you see where this is going??????  

The kid got the bed of coals going great, put in the ingredients, layered some more coals on top and let 'er cook.  The cheese souflee' turned out pretty good...at least on the top half.  The bottom half was completely burned to a crisp and when he dumped out what was on bottom, the aluminum foil stayed behind!!!  The fire was so hot it literally melted aluminum INTO THE PORES of the now non-existent seasoning that was in the cast iron.  Scrape it out; nope.  Brush it out; nope.  The old scoutmaster was about ready to kill the kid.  They took the dutch oven and kid to the scoutmaster's home and worked about 4-5 hours trying to get the aluminum out; to no avail.  The old scoutmaster had to grind a new bottom surface on his prized cast iron dutch oven and start another 30 years of seasoning...I don't think he lived that long.  The kid?  He never got his cooking badge.  Go figure.

Edited June 4, 2015 by arkie

[Frosty]

The kid should've gotten his merit badge, the only real requirement was it be edible! bummer, he should've taken the dutch oven to a motor cycle shop, they would've had the al cleaned out in an hour or so. Q tips and muriatic acid removes the al from the cylinder sleeve when you sieze a piston pretty easily. The al prevents the iron from being damaged by the acid but it sure makes the al boil off.

Dad about killed me when I showed him the easy way to clean his dutch oven, just get it smoking hot and pour in some water. Clean as a whistle it was, cleaner than when he gave it to me. Seasoning? Why do you put salt and pepper in a dutch oven Dad?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

My daughters refuse to even clean my castiron, lol

[ianinsa]

Why Charles, doesn't it fit in the dishwasher? Most have a setting for pots?(grin)

[Charles R. Stevens]

Yea, dad gets a bit pissy about soap around my pans, no germ is going to survive being heated befor Adding oil.

[Frosty]

Make pop corn and it's seasoned nicely. Deb hates cast iron for some reason and it's been so long since I used mine the seasoning has gone rancid. Rancid cast iron is pretty nasty but burning it out and re-seasoning it takes care of that.

Frosty The Lucky.