Camping Recipe: Biscuits [Video]

By Molly Herber

Nov 10, 2017

Cooking biscuits on a camp stove
Photo by Mauricio Clauzet

You know you've found the perfect adventure partner when you wake up to the smell of baking in the morning. Fortunately, it isn't that hard for youto become that perfect adventure partner—all you need are one or two recipes.

If you're new to baking on a camp stove, then biscuits are a great place to start, since the recipe isn't too complicated. If you're an advanced backcountry baker, then biscuits are the perfect recipe to test your creativity. See how many variations you can come up with: sweet, savory, smothered in chocolate chips…

You'll find our basic recipe inspired by the NOLS Cookery below, plus some ideas for variations. Enjoy!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 Tbs. baking powder
  • 1/4 cup powdered milk
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 4 Tbs. butter
  • 1/2-3/4 cup water

Directions

  1. Mix flour, baking powder, powdered milk, and salt
  2. Cut butter into the dry ingredients using a knife or the edges of a spoon
  3. Add water slowly until you form a stiff dough
  4. Knead the dough in a bowl about a dozen times (don't over-knead!)
  5. Shape the dough into balls the size of your fist or smaller
  6. Place biscuits in a frying pan (we like the Fry-Bake)
  7. Cover the pan and cook, using a twiggy fire, for 15-20 minutes until biscuits are golden brown
  8. Alternative: Melt butter in the pan and fry (about 2-3 minutes on each side)

Variations

Cheesy Biscuits

  • 3 Tbs. nutritional yeast
  • 1 tsp. garlic powder
  • 1 cup cheese

Starting with the basic biscuit recipe, mix garlic powder, nutritional yeast, and cheese into the dough after you add the butter. Fry or bake as above.

You can also break apart the dough balls, put a piece of cheese inside, and pinch the halves back together to make a cheesy filling (or add some red sauce to make pizza biscuits!).

Watch how to make cheesy biscuits:

Sweet Biscuits

  • 1 Tbs. butter
  • 1 Tbs. brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup chopped mixed fruit

Melt the butter and mix the above ingredients together in a separate bowl. Then, make the basic biscuit dough as above. Stuff the filling inside each dough ball and pinch together. Bake or fry as above.

To make your biscuits more like scones, add 3 Tbs. of sugar and 1 cup chocolate chips to the basic recipe.

See more recipes like this in the NOLS Cookery.

Written By

Molly Herber

Molly is a NOLS instructor and writer. She loves the smell of her backpack and does her best writing before 7:00 am. When she's not scouting the next post for the NOLS Blog, she's running and climbing on rocks in Wyoming. Follow her on Instagram @mgherber

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