Brownies!!!

Yes, Brownies really do need to have 3 exclamation points. :) 

Who doesn't love a good brownie? It's chocolaty, sweet, part crunchy, part gooey and all yummy. 

For the last couple of summers, I've been a volunteer at a local Girl Scout camp and have been assisting the food team in creating allergy friendly outdoor cooking recipes. The camp teaches the participants how to use a Dutch Oven, Box Oven, Propane Stove, and Hobo Stove over the course of the program. I've been experimenting with these types of outdoor cooking methods on my own to find yummy Paleo or at least GF, DF recipes that work great for these alternative cooking styles. Through my experimentation I've managed to find several recipes that work for various allergies. All of them work well when cooked in a regular home oven and when you are diligent with your charcoal, they all work well in a box oven as well. 

Recently my daughter and her Girl Scout troop held a Box Oven cooking workshop where they showed other girls how to make and use a box oven to bake brownies. One of the other troop moms spent many hours experimenting with the coals to find the perfect way to bake these brownies in the amount of time we had available for the workshop. What she found was that the coals must be totally white before you start baking. With the proper coals your brownies bake in the usual 45 minutes; however,  if you jump the gun on the coals, your brownies will take much much longer to firm up and be cooked through. In a camping situation, sometimes this doesn't make much difference, but knowing the proper way was crucial for our workshops. Our troop has made and used box ovens on several of our camping trips and I've documented that here. Take a look and make your own oven to use when you camp or just in your own back yard for fun. 

Here are 3 different brownie recipes that I've created to fit various needs. All are Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Soy Free and Nut Free. One is also granulated sugar free and one is egg free. Hopefully you'll find one you'll love.

Gluten Free Brownies (GF, DF, Nut Free)

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 ½ cup sugar (coconut palm sugar or other granulated sugar)

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt 

3 eggs

3/4 cup liquid (water, coconut milk or other milk)

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C miniature marshmallows

Mix all ingredients then pour into an 8x8 brownie pan. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes.

Gluten Free Egg Free Brownies (GF, DF, Nut Free, Egg Free)

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 ½ cup sugar (coconut palm sugar or other granulated sugar)

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt 

2/3 cup coconut oil - melted

3/4 cup liquid (water, coconut milk or other milk)

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C miniature marshmallows

Mix all ingredients then pour into an 8x8 brownie pan. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes.

Paleo Brownies (GF, DF, Nut Free)

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3/4 cup honey

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt 

3 eggs

1/2 cup liquid (water, coconut milk or other milk)

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C miniature marshmallows

Mix all ingredients then pour into an 8x8 brownie pan. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes.

Pumpkin Cupcakes Made in the Box Oven

This past weekend my family went camping with a few other families, several of which also ate Paleo or similar. On this trip we cooked our food in a variety of ways. We baked coffee cake in the Dutch oven,  made pancakes over a camp stove, made omelets in zip lock bags in boiling water, roasted sweet potatoes and more in the campfire coals and baked chocolate chip muffins and pumpkin muffins in box ovens. Box ovens may be my favorite camp cooking method just because it seem amazing to me that you can make an oven that will reach baking temperature using only a cardboard box and aluminum foil. That's kind of crazy, really.

 

The pumpkin muffins were a big hit with the adults while the chocolate chip were the kids' favorite. I'm really psyched to try out more flavors in the box oven. Have any requests?

Box Oven Pumpkin Cupcakes

1 ½  C almond flour
1 small can pumpkin
1 ½  tsp. baking soda
¾  C honey
1 tsp. cloves
2 Tbs. cinnamon
2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. salt
6 eggs

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Spoon batter into a lined muffin tin.

If making in a regular oven, Preheat oven to 350F. Bake muffins for about 30 minutes or until they are firm on the top when you press on them.

If making in a box oven, light 9 charcoal briquettes. Using the instructions here, place the muffin tin in the box oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until muffins are firm on top when you press on them. Keep in mind when using a box oven that every time you lift the box up, you will lose 25 degrees F from the oven and will need to add an additional 15 minutes to the cooking time. That's why the nifty window is so nice!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

This weekend the Girl and I went on a Girl Scout camping trip on the beautiful Hood Canal. For one of the meals, the girls cooked it from start to finish in their cook shelter. The Girl volunteered to help with dessert which would be chocolate chip cupcakes. Since one of the girls in the troop also eats gluten and dairy free, I went to work making a paleo recipe that the girls could take to camp and easily make in a box oven. I mixed all dry ingredients into a Ziploc bag at home, then the girls added the eggs, honey and applesauce at camp. Simple!

 

They first needed to make the box oven (instructions here), then mix up the cupcake batter and cook it at their campsite. The results were better than I expected, really. Once we got the placement of the cupcake pan right (don't sit the pan directly on the coals!), then the cupcakes cooked up like they would have in a regular oven. The window on the top, that The Girl insisted on including,  made checking on the cupcakes much easier! I highly recommend a window in your box oven. And I highly recommend giving box oven cooking a try, just for the novelty of the whole thing if for nothing else. :)

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
1 C Almond Flour
2 Tbs. Coconut flour
3 Tbs. Cocoa Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 eggs
1/2 C applesauce (one of those 4 oz cups of applesauce works great for traveling)
1/2 C honey
1 C chocolate chips (we used dairy free chips)

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl, then add all wet ingredients to dry and stir in the chips. Scoop batter into lined muffin cups. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes in a regular oven. For box oven, use 9 briquettes and cook for about 30 minutes. Cupcakes will have gooey melted chips inside when warm.