Jodi's Dutch Oven Cake

I once had a recipe I found on the internet that told me how to make a cake in a dutch oven.  We used that recipe on one of our annual memorial day camp outs.  The recipe has since been lost, and I never remember to search the internet for it, so I decided this past memorial day to just wing it.  Tried to remember what would go in such a cake.  I was able to pack most of the ingredients, but forgot the the dutch oven.....FAIL....but we were in luck the friends we were camping with are Trailer campers, therefor they have way more storage area than us tent campers and they happened to own a dutch oven they had used once or twice.  The only ingredient we were missing was a can of pop.....in the past I had used cherry limeade, but try to find that in the stores now....it's rare.  Plus we never take pop when we camp, but tada Lisa and Tony (those trailer campers I spoke of) had a can of diet orange pop.  I winged it and made a fantastic cake.....it burn on one side but we were able to get enough not burned to satisfiy everyone. 
So we  planned another camping trip this past weekend to Mammoth Cave with Lisa and Tony, and their daughter Lauren requested some Jodi Cake......no pressure....as I didn't write any of that down, so I planned to wing it again, this time being more strategic, and plan it to be even healthier.  This time I consumed nearly an entire bottle of Oliver Soft Red Wine, the wine didn't go in the cake but me having drank almost the whole thing possibly made me a better cook.  I'm sure of it.  It also encouraged my creativity to create a blog post Pioneer Women Style so other could make this cake also. 

We'll call this Jodi's Dutch Oven Cake.  This is a camping recipe, but you could easily throw this into a 13x9 cake pan and bake it in the oven if you are not a camper.  I shot for making this almost sugar free.  The only sugar was what was in the cake mix, the rest was sugar free.  We have here as follows:

1 8 oz can of fruity pop of your choice (diet)

1/2 stick of butter 

1/2 cup of splenda brown sugar blend

1 box of cake mix

can of mandarin oranges no sugar added

can of cherry pie filling no sugar added (or any fruit of your choice)

1 egg



This is the liner in the dutch oven

We are going to load all these ingredients into one of these.  This is a cast iron dutch oven to be used in a camp fire.  It's an amazing piece of equiptment, but requires quite a bit of maintence....thankfully we have friends who take care of theirs, since we've neglected ours.  It requires oiling, which we forgot to do to ours.  Because you can't really wash these things the Dutch Oven Liners are amazing!  So I highly recommend picking up a box of these Theres quite a few in one box so provided you and cooking in a dutch oven every night 1 box will last you a long time. 

Ok the oven is prepped and ready to go.  Side note......my other friend Weezer went camping with us too.  While preparing to go camping and thinking if we had additional people to feed we might need another dutch oven so I asked her if she had a dutch oven.....she said no they did have a convection oven though and wondered if that would work????  Ha Ha Ha.....I don't think I'd put that in the fire.  Ok so lets make a cake already!

Dump the cake mix in a large bowl. 

add your egg and can of pop stir until well blended.

I greased the bottom with a little bit of butter and then, pour this concoction into the dutch oven.

Then add your can of cherry's

drain the juice of the mandarin oranges, and pour them in on top of the cherry's.  No need to mix.

Sprinkle in the brown sugar splenda blend.  I did not measure I just eyeballed what I thought would be a good amount.  Same with the butter cut of pats of butter and sprinkle them over top the mixture.  again no mixing. 

Then put on the lid and check and prep your fire. 

You'll want any large pieces of wood moved to the side and a good base of white and red coals on the bottom those will be under your oven.  You'll also want to move some coals to the side that you will place on top of the dutch oven. 

This will create even cooking. 

approximate cooking time, depending on how hot your coals are should be 35 minutes.  Check often, starting at the 30 min mark add 5-10 minutes if it doesn't look done.  It's done when the edges are brown. 

Let it cool for a good 10 minutes as it will be very very hot. 

Serve and enjoy.  We are thinking about making campers ice cream next time to go with our yummy cake.