Yeah it was bought many months ago when i was flush and i did make a rather nice waxed canvas case for it but ive finally made the time to try out my folding reflector oven! I pre mixed
4 cups of fresh self raising flour
a heaped table spoon of well in date baking powder
1/4 a teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut
1/2 a cup of cranberries
2 heaped table spoon of white sugar
nearly a full cup of sultanas
and rubbed in 2 or three table spoons of vegetable oil.
At the cooking site (far end of the top back garden) I mixed in about a 1/3rd of a pint of warmed milk (you may need more or less but you're aiming for a dough that just doesn't stick to your hands when shaping it for the pan. you want to kneed it as little as possible so mix the dry ingredients well. in this case it was a 8" non stick shallow cake tin. I forgot to oil it but miraculously it didn't stick in the slightest.
Since i wanted to minimize smoke and try the thing out i built a fire in my equally shiny and folding fire bowl, like a veg steamer "flower" without the holes, from thin splits of seasoned logs, sycamore i think as i wanted to make flames rather than hot coals. what would have been better would have been masses of really thin kindling such as you get hanging dead from lower branches. As it my first go i erred on the side of caution so the fire wasnt as brisk as it could have been but it did the job in the end.
The handle on the top was very use full, didn't heat up significantly and meant you could lift the lot away , turn the dish and put it back in a second or two. On that point we observed that the back of the damper browned almost as quickly as the front so while baking slowly we hardly needed to turn it at all. With hotter flames this may not be the case. Towards the end I raised the bottom of the oven to the height of the top of the fire bowl to see if that speeded up the baking, which I think it did.
the bottom browned slightly faster than the top but did not burn at all and the whole thing raised beautifully and was to my taste deliciously moist with slightly crunchy crust. Ff course I could only have a tiny bit being on a harsh diet but every one else has wolfed it down with a son swiping a quarter of it for the drive to the Yorkshire Dales for his belated D of E expedition just now, Herself will see the rest off today.
In the field i would have mixed in half a cup of milk powder and used warm water to hydrate it and mixed it in the zip lock bag.
Herself has ordered me a 8" mesh Pizza tray which will be lighter and less bulky to carry although the non stick cake pan is more versatile. I'll mainly be baking on it rather than roasting etc. I suppose i could flatten a disposable foil tray and reshape it before use but that doesn't quite sit right with me these days.
Fastest results would I think come from placing it at a suitable distance from a larger camp fire but I don't really do those anymore, Id rather sit closer to a smaller fire and fiddle with it.
When we finally get the parlour sorted and the open fire in use I'll use that for practice when we will have fires anyway.
I like it and its certainly light enough and small enough to carry in a pack or satchel, in its case it's 2lb 2oz.
ATB
Tom
4 cups of fresh self raising flour
a heaped table spoon of well in date baking powder
1/4 a teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut
1/2 a cup of cranberries
2 heaped table spoon of white sugar
nearly a full cup of sultanas
and rubbed in 2 or three table spoons of vegetable oil.
At the cooking site (far end of the top back garden) I mixed in about a 1/3rd of a pint of warmed milk (you may need more or less but you're aiming for a dough that just doesn't stick to your hands when shaping it for the pan. you want to kneed it as little as possible so mix the dry ingredients well. in this case it was a 8" non stick shallow cake tin. I forgot to oil it but miraculously it didn't stick in the slightest.
Since i wanted to minimize smoke and try the thing out i built a fire in my equally shiny and folding fire bowl, like a veg steamer "flower" without the holes, from thin splits of seasoned logs, sycamore i think as i wanted to make flames rather than hot coals. what would have been better would have been masses of really thin kindling such as you get hanging dead from lower branches. As it my first go i erred on the side of caution so the fire wasnt as brisk as it could have been but it did the job in the end.
The handle on the top was very use full, didn't heat up significantly and meant you could lift the lot away , turn the dish and put it back in a second or two. On that point we observed that the back of the damper browned almost as quickly as the front so while baking slowly we hardly needed to turn it at all. With hotter flames this may not be the case. Towards the end I raised the bottom of the oven to the height of the top of the fire bowl to see if that speeded up the baking, which I think it did.
the bottom browned slightly faster than the top but did not burn at all and the whole thing raised beautifully and was to my taste deliciously moist with slightly crunchy crust. Ff course I could only have a tiny bit being on a harsh diet but every one else has wolfed it down with a son swiping a quarter of it for the drive to the Yorkshire Dales for his belated D of E expedition just now, Herself will see the rest off today.
In the field i would have mixed in half a cup of milk powder and used warm water to hydrate it and mixed it in the zip lock bag.
Herself has ordered me a 8" mesh Pizza tray which will be lighter and less bulky to carry although the non stick cake pan is more versatile. I'll mainly be baking on it rather than roasting etc. I suppose i could flatten a disposable foil tray and reshape it before use but that doesn't quite sit right with me these days.
Fastest results would I think come from placing it at a suitable distance from a larger camp fire but I don't really do those anymore, Id rather sit closer to a smaller fire and fiddle with it.
When we finally get the parlour sorted and the open fire in use I'll use that for practice when we will have fires anyway.
I like it and its certainly light enough and small enough to carry in a pack or satchel, in its case it's 2lb 2oz.
ATB
Tom
thank you for sharing. 
