when life gives you oranges: make Cake-in-an-Orange!

This week John and I went camping. I had a great menu planned, but because we fought (and lost) against the pesky buzzing hypodermic needles, our desserts remained uncooked. One of the desserts I wanted, I yearned, to cook was cake-in-an-orange. This delicacy hearkens back to my scouting days of yore, and it is one of the legendary feats of campfire culinary prowess that girls from my troop will still talk about.

Anyway, we didn’t make them. There.

When I got home, however, I still had the oranges, I still had the cake, I still had the yearning. So I made Cake-In-An-Orange!

It is really quite simple.

cleaned and waiting for batter

Take your oranges, cut off the tops. I cut around the inside of the oranges, too, so that spooning out the fruit was easier. A grapefruit spoon wouldn’t have hurt.

Ream out the fruit (and save it).

Joe helped me clean out the oranges

filled and ready to go

Use some of the juice of the oranges to make your cake batter. I used an instant muffin mix, because I knew I wouldn’t need so much batter. I replaced the water with the fresh squeezed orange juice.

Since I was without hot coals, I did not wrap my oranges in aluminum foil, instead I cut off a tiny bit of the heel, so they would sit with a solid base in my cast-iron skillet. (If you are at a campfire, it is crucial that you wrap them in foil. Otherwise they will taste like ash and spill. It doesn’t really work that way… though it was a good night anyway.)

ready for the oven

 

Top your oranges, (wrap them with foil), and toss them in an oven (campfire)!

mmm, tasty batter peeking out

I cooked them for a while. And I could have probably done them at a higher heat. But they still worked quite well.

spooky cauldrons

MMM. Now for some ghost stories…