Birthday Cake, Ole Lake Style!

Making Kettle Cake:        

To make Kettle Cake the way we do, you need a cast iron dutch oven.  It is important to get one with legs on the bottom, and a rim around the top of the lid.  It needs to be well seasoned to make clean-up easy, otherwise it will be an onerous chore.

Have on hand some charcoal and starter fluid.

Start by piling the charcoal up on the ground; a gravel driveway works well.  Soak it and light it up.  While it is heating up, assemble the cake.

You need 2 cans of pie filling; cherry, peach, apple, whatever you love.

You need a cake batter, either store-bought and follow the directions, or your favorite homemade recipe.  Cherry Pie filling with Crazy Chocolate Cake is popular around here, as are Peach/Yellow.  I don’t recall if we have done Apple/Spice, but that sounds good to me.  Blueberry/White is good too.  I think we've done rhubarb too.

So, put the pie filling in the bottom of the dutch oven, then pour the cake batter on top.  Put the lid on and bring it out to the charcoal, which should be hot now.

Notice the lid-lifter... a handy item you must have for this sort of thing

Be careful!  Using tongs or a garden trowel, put coals on the lid, and then lay out a flat layer to put the dutch oven on.  Bake for a while… it varies, maybe 40 to 60 minutes.  Test with a fork to make sure the cake is completely done.  Sometimes we think it’s done and it’s not, which is why the Crazy Cake recipe works well…. No eggs to worry about if you have a doughy spot!

There you go!  Let it cool down a little and enjoy with some ice cream, whipped cream, or, like we did last time, some homemade vanilla pudding (made with goat milk of course!).

Kurt enjoys his birthday cake!   

For those of you who don't know what crazy cake is... leave a comment and I will send you the recipe!