Any good ideas for throwing a birthday cake together? Any ideas for one that makes up in a fry pan???? Chocolate preferably? Thanks!

I made a birthday cake on Lake Three last week. It turned out very good. It was a Betty Crocker Complete desert cake, triple chocolate hot fudge cake. Simply add one cup of water and mix, then squeeze the fudge packet into the cake batter. Bake for 18-20 minutes and add the topping packet. Sit back and enjoy. I used an outback oven to bake the cake in. I don't know if it could be done in a frying pan? Maybe if you added some coals on top of a lid. My father inlaw turned 67 on that trip. I think he was surprise to get a B-day cake. Good luck on finding a good mix. B-day Cakes make for a special treat and is something they will not forget.

tony

Thanks Tony,

I think an outback oven will be a future "always need a new toy for the trip" purchase! I did end up buying a bakepacker insert at REI, and made quite a decent cake shaped object in a pan of boiling water with that (a pre trip experiment in my kitchen) and a Betty Crocker choc chip muffin mix (Duncan Hines version is vegan, in case anyone else is reading this...) so I think I'll go with that this year. With the burning ban, however, not sure how our fuel will hold up, as it has to boil on low for about 20 minutes. bummer. Thanks much for your advice, I can only hope I'll be celebrating my birthdays in my late sixties and into the seventies and eighties in the bwca. And someone will be bakin me a cake!

You can cook almost any kind of cake or other baked goods in an old round metal jello mold. The best kind has few to no fancy decorations and a nice big hole on the center- sort of like a bundt pan. Find a shallow cake pan that is slightly larger for a lid and you're in business! Just grease it up good and set it on the grate when the fire burns down a bit. The lid holds all the heat in and funnels it across the top of your cake, and the finished product is most edge so it cooks quickly. You do need to rotate it fairly often ( a pliers works good for this), but it beats the pants off dutch ovens and reflectors, and is very light weight. For groups larger than 5 I take 2 of them...you can never have too MANY brownies, right!

I always carry a "bakepacker" in my cook kit. They are available at many outdoor stores. The larger size works well. The mixes intended for a 9x9 pan work perfectly. When packing I mix dried egg whites into the cake mix rather than carry eggs. In camp all you need is water. I pour the batter into a pan, slide it inside a plastic bag, set it on the bakepacker and wait patiently. Always a hit and even more so if there is a birthday in the group.

I carry an aluminum dutch oven. You can make any kind of cake you want. One of our favorites is pineapple upside down. Brown sugar, butter, dried pineapple in the bottom add cake mix made up at home. The dutch oven weighs about 3.5 lbs. I think it is well worth taking. Haven't tried the jello mold but it sounds interesting. I will consider it when I can't tote the dutch oven anymore :).

Dried egg whites work as an egg substitute when baking? I did not know that.

(if you couldnt tell, I am a total newb when it comes to baking)

I will try and attach a couple of photos of the jello mold oven.
My modifications are a temp gauge that goes thru the lid to tell what is going on with out removing lid. I have found about 160F on the gauge is good for no burn, good bake temp.
I added silicone baking sheet material cut to fit for the lid and the inside and outside. Helps a lot for maintaining steady temp, especially when it is cool/cold outside. The "Donut" look on the lid is because the center gets too hot even for silicone, as it melted, quite the mess. The smaller inner ring stops any burning happening on the mold, as that was a problem it fixed. Grease the thing, pour batter, cook till done. Jiffy and Bisquick mixes work great, brownies too. Brownies have to be sized down about 1/3 from package at least for me to cook in shorter time. Both pans are from Goodwill, about $4. Thermometer and silicone about $15.