Beer Damper Recipe Camp Oven

Beer Damper Recipe in the Camp Oven

Here’s a simple beer damper recipe in the camp oven.

Nothing beats freshly cooked damper while camping under the stars. Seriously, does anything?

This recipe is super simple and if you follow our method and tips you will have no issues creating this and impressing your mates while camping.

Gear:

The gear we use to cook beer damper.

• Adventure Kings 12 inch spun steel camp oven.
• Round baking dish that fits in the bottom of your camp oven (this is not a necessity).
• Heat beads (this is not necessary however see our tips below).
• Potjie King stainless steel cooker (again this is not necessary but we have one, love it and use it all the time).
• Olive oil and paper towel to season your camp oven and baking dish.
• Mixing bowl and wooden spoon to prepare your damper mix.
• Oven gloves or fire resistant gloves to handle your camp oven.

Ingredients:

The below ingredients are enough to serve 4 adults so adjust as required.

• 1 1/2 cups of self raising flour
• Couple extra tablespoons of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons of butter
• Half to two thirds of a beer

Method:

Mix dry ingredients, self raising and flour and baking powder. We use a wooden spoon.

Then add the butter to the flour mix and combine by hand. Easier and quicker to do this by hand. Leave a small amount of flour in your container (couple of tablespoons) to assist with the final step.

Once the butter has been rubbed into the flour mix, add about a third of a bottle of beer to start with. Now mix thoroughly, we use a wooden spoon here. Add more beer if needed or if too wet and a bit more flour. If you haven’t packed extra flour then you want to start with less beer to get the mix right. You want to be left with a nice soft mix. Using the couple of tablespoons of flour you left aside earlier, add this to your mix to remove some of the stickiness and to assist you in shaping the damper more easily.

Shape the damper into a large circle and then cut 2 slits across the top about 1 cm deep. This will make it easier to separate the damper into pieces once it has cooked.

We add the damper to a non stick baking dish that fits perfectly in the bottom of our 12 inch camp oven. Some people just use baking paper instead. We ensure that the baking dish has been seasoned / wiped with olive oil using a paper towel before hand. Add the damper to your camp oven ensuring it is sitting on top of your trivet.

Cooking:

We use a 12 inch steel camp oven so we do not need to preheat it as it gets hot really quickly. The cook time will be between 30 – 40 minutes depending on how hot your oven gets. We use heat beads as this allows us to control the temperature far better as we know exactly how many heat beads to use. We also use a Potjie King with our camp oven so this means that there is about a 150 mm gap between the heat beads and the bottom of the oven. If you are sitting your camp oven directly on the heat beads you will want to check the damper regularly to ensure it doesn’t burn. Again with a camp oven it will be a bit of trial and error to get it right with your particular setup.

We use a total of 15 heat beads for beer damper distributed as follows: 5 on the bottom and 10 on top. You want most of the heat coming from the top. As per my note previously, we use a Potjie King so the camp oven is not sitting directly on the heat beads and as a result it doesn’t get as hot on the bottom. Once you work out how many heats beads work for you, make a note of this so you can get it perfect next time.

It usually takes between 30 – 40 minutes for your damper to be cooked perfect. Make sure though that you check the damper after 15 minutes at the most. Our first ever attempt got a little burnt as we checked it after 25 minutes and the oven was hotter than we thought – it still tasted great but it is good to check it regularly to make sure it doesn’t burn. The below photo of the damper is after 15 minutes.

The crust will be golden brown when cooked. Serve with butter and your choice of meat and veggies.

Nothing better than freshly baked damper while sitting under the stars.

Tips:

• Measure out all your dry ingredients before your trip, mix and add to a smaller container – add a little extra flour to assist shaping the damper. Good for saving space and no need to waste time measuring ingredients etc. If you are going on a longer trip then this might not work for you as you will probably make this recipe a few times.
• Use heat beads as this allows you to calculate the temperature far easier and if you make a note of the number of heats beads you use then next time you cook the same recipe you will get it perfect each time.
• Use a baking dish as this makes it easy to add and remove the damper from your camp oven – you can use baking paper but I prefer a baking dish.

The best thing is to just give it a crack and then work it all out from there. Our first ever attempt a this recipe was not so great and we burnt the damper, but now it is super easy for us. Trial and error works best with a camp oven. We hope you enjoy this beer damper recipe in the camp oven. Send us a message on Instagram or comment below.

Recipe and method by Peter.

Here’s some other bush cooking recipes.