The Dutch oven cobbler is the American campfire pudding: tinned fruit in the pot, a dry topping over it, coals on the lid. It belongs to the same family as the damper and works for the same reason. A heavy lidded pot with fire above and below is an oven.
This follows Lodge’s Lazy Peach Cobbler, which is about as simple as baking gets: the peaches go in with all their syrup, the dry mix is scattered over without stirring, fat goes on top, and the syrup bubbling up from below wets the topping into a crust.
Notice the coal split. For bread, Lodge recommends three times as many coals on the lid as underneath. For this cobbler they put more underneath, 15 below and 10 on top. The fruit has to bubble hard enough to rise through the topping, and that heat has to come from below. A recipe’s coal count is part of the recipe.
- Get a bed of embers going, or light about 25 charcoal briquettes in a chimney until they are grey at the edges.
- Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and milk powder.
- Tip the peaches with all their syrup into a 25 to 30 cm camp oven or cast iron pot. Scatter the dry mix evenly over the top. Do not stir.
- Drizzle the oil over as evenly as you can, then dust with cinnamon.
- Lid on. Set the pot over about 15 coals’ worth of embers and put about 10 on the lid, spread out rather than in a heap.
- Bake about 45 minutes, turning the pot a quarter turn and the lid a quarter turn the other way every 15 minutes. It is ready when the top is golden and the syrup is bubbling up thickly around the edges. A few floury patches can be pushed down into the syrup for the last ten minutes.
Let it stand five minutes. It is very hot underneath.
On one burner: in a heavy lidded pan on the lowest flame, 30 to 35 minutes. The top steams rather than browns, so it comes out cakey and pale, more like a sponge pudding. Still good.
Serves 6.