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Reflector Oven

Corn Bread

A
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup powdered milk (p buttermilk works too)
1 tbs sugar (we go easy on this)
1/2 tsp salt
--------------------------------
B
1 egg
1/2 cup oil
1 cup water (enough to make a sticky dough)
--------------------------------
Our preferred options :
Fried and chopped bacon
Finely chopped hot peppers
--------------------------------
--------------------------------

Thoroughly mix the dry ingredients first, then mix each in turn adding egg, then oil and lastly water.
Pour the dough into an oiled pan and bake 20 - 25 minutes until firm and inserted knife comes out clean.

Note: We premix the dry ingredients A at home. We add wet ingredients B in camp.
Baking is done in a fry pan with a second frypan used as a lid over a low-medium fire, just as we do bannock or other breads. (We don't have a RF)
This cornbread recipe is ideal to accompany soups and stews, but can also be dropped into them as dumplings, or best used as a top crust for chili con carne.
Our favourite combos are cornbread dumplings in rehydrated pea soup, and cornbread crust on rehydrated chili con carne.

Brad & Miranda
 
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Some time ago I made double rise bread, let it rise once then froze it. Brought it on a trip and as it thawed we made camp got a fire going and the second rise was happening. Put it in the RO and in less than an hour we had mighty tasty homemade bread with butter as well as some apple butter. Back in 74' on the Albany River we used Bisquick and re-hydrated strawberries to make what we called a wilderness strawberry shortcake. On the St. John River last year one of the crew made a muffin mix every night. It was a good way to end the night.
 

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alsg said:
Open to suggestions! My confession is that while I have seen one in operation on a couple of guided trips, I've never used one. So I'd like to keep it on the simpler side this first time to make sure I don't mess up completely. GIlpatrick's got some recipes for what he call's "canoe country bread" and I may give that a shot. Would like to make bread/rolls for dinner, blueberry muffins for a breakfast.
Click to expand...

You can always start with the Pillsbury Rollouts and just work the baking end of it.

Nice job on the finished oven
 
sweeper said:
You can always start with the Pillsbury Rollouts and just work the baking end of it.

Nice job on the finished oven
Click to expand...

Yes, nice job!

and +1 on the premade stuff. Maybe even a backyard campfire and "just add water" blueberry muffin mix to get a feel for how the baking part goes. As Canot says, it takes a little getting used to. ie: how big to make the flames, how close to the fire, is it baking evenly or should I rotate the pan yet...

Personally, I would rather learn by screwing up
A. At home,
B. With out doing all the leg work of a good from scratch recipie

Jason
 
You will need that cooler this week if you bring dough in a can,, beastly hot.. Exploding dough is never fun
PS. Water levels still down
 
Ok I disagree with all on the premede stuff... Bannok, Bannok is easy probably easier than the permed stuff!!! And plus you will have satisfaction!!
 
I don't want to kick a bannock hornet's nest (as weird an image as they may be) but I'm sitting in Canot's camp on this one. A year or so ago I bought a box of Aunt Jemima, it was an impulse buy. When my dominatrix (ha ha) domestic goddess found it in the pantry she might as well have been outfitted in leather and chains (more ha ha). "Brad. How hard is it to measure and mix flour and baking powder with a pinch of salt? Really. " Actually it's not that hard at all. That box of premix lasted till last week when it was used up for whatever. I think we made crepes. Anyway, bannock isn't so far off the mark either. I looked up recipes for vegetarian bannock. While I prefer lard (pork fat) in my mix our daughter has dietary issues. Some recipes were stupid simple. Just omit the fat. Others listed vegetable fat like Crisco. I wound up not making any for her but did make up my own to self indulge later for dinner with tea. It feels satisfying working in a kitchen whether at home or on the trail. At home measure and mix. Cut in the lard and add the dried fruit. At camp add some water and sticky stir. Scrape plop into a lightly greased pan over med-low heat and try your patience waiting for the results. For dinner I cheated and put the cast iron pan into the preheated oven. I pretended I was borrowing a friend's brand newly built reflector oven. I also imagined our conversation, that went something like this :
"I'm really liking your RF, thanks for lending it to me."
"No probs. Although I'm still refining it. I still think it might be a bit large."
"I wondered about that. I like the interior light though. Nice touch."
Our kitchen sees a lot of scratch cooking with mostly good results. Same goes with our camp kitchen. Neither sees a lot of premix stuff happening, but that's not necessarily snobbery. You just get into the habit of things is all. But we have been leaning on premix type meals found in the International aisle of our local grocery stores, especially Indian and Thai. Those are simple and fast for canoe tripping. Although we still like adding to them with fresh ingredients. A small cutting board and paring knife are a permanent part of our tripping kitchen kit. At home most evenings after work she will pull open the spice drawer and lift down the pestle and mortar and proceed to concoct. I mention helpfully that we could just open a jar, to which she replies she'd rather enjoy the creative process of cooking. Okay. I get it. I pull out the cutting board and knives, and start chopping whatever is on the recipe list. And just like that our meal morphs from a time saving rushed robotic sprint to a time savouring relaxed holistic holiday. Cooking is what you make it, and what you want it to be.
But then again there have been evenings we've had tinned beans on toast. Ha.
 
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Odyssey said:
I don't want to kick a bannock hornet's nest (as weird an image as they may be) but I'm sitting in Canot's camp on this one. A year or so ago I bought a box of Aunt Jemima, it was an impulse buy. When my dominatrix (ha ha) domestic goddess found it in the pantry she might as well have been outfitted in leather and chains (more ha ha). "Brad. How hard is it to measure and mix flour and baking powder with a pinch of salt? Really. " Actually it's not that hard at all. That box of premix lasted till last week when it was used up for whatever. I think we made crepes. Anyway, bannock isn't so far off the mark either. I looked up recipes for vegetarian bannock. While I prefer lard (pork fat) in my mix our daughter has dietary issues. Some recipes were stupid simple. Just omit the fat. Others listed vegetable fat like Crisco. I wound up not making any for her but did make up my own to self indulge later for dinner with tea. It feels satisfying working in a kitchen whether at home or on the trail. At home measure and mix. Cut in the lard and add the dried fruit. At camp add some water and sticky stir. Scrape plop into a lightly greased pan over med-low heat and try your patience waiting for the results. For dinner I cheated and put the cast iron pan into the preheated oven. I pretended I was borrowing a friend's brand newly built reflector oven. I also imagined our conversation, that went something like this :
"I'm really liking your RF, thanks for lending it to me."
"No probs. Although I'm still refining it. I still think it might be a bit large."
"I wondered about that. I like the interior light though. Nice touch."
Our kitchen sees a lot of scratch cooking with mostly good results. Same goes with our camp kitchen. Neither sees a lot of premix stuff happening, but that's not necessarily snobbery. You just get into the habit of things is all. But we have been leaning on premix type meals found in the International aisle of our local grocery stores, especially Indian and Thai. Those are simple and fast for canoe tripping. Although we still like adding to them with fresh ingredients. A small cutting board and paring knife are a permanent part of our tripping kitchen kit. At home most evenings after work she will pull open the spice drawer and lift down the pestle and mortar and proceed to concoct. I mention helpfully that we could just open a jar, to which she replies she'd rather enjoy the creative process of cooking. Okay. I get it. I pull out the cutting board and knives, and start chopping whatever is on the recipe list. And just like that our meal morphs from a time saving rushed robotic sprint to a time savouring relaxed holistic holiday. Cooking is what you make it, and what you want it to be.
But then again there have been evenings we've had tinned beans on toast. Ha.
Click to expand...

There's a guy and his wife(leather or not) I would bring on trip with me...
 
I agree with you, I find all of Odyssey posts well written and thoughtful. No doubt either, that his domestic goddess is a princess.
 
Boreal Birch said:
I agree with you, I find all of Odyssey posts well written and thoughtful. No doubt either, that his domestic goddess is a princess.
Click to expand...

No doubts here either.

I harbor some dreams of a cross-Canada trip to meet and paddle with some of our northern brethren; that would be the adventure of a lifetime.

And Brad probably wouldn’t burn the muffins. Smileyface thingee.
 
Nice build! Reflector ovens do work well if, and I say "IF" firewood is in good supply, I lost interest in using the reflector, mainly because the amount of wood and the energy it took for 2-3 campers.

Too many years passed I'm retired now and probably won't be doing any more camping trips.

I've always felt an improvement on the reflector oven would be to a back opening lid so one doesn't have to reach in the front where it's usually quite hot!
 
That's one seriously good looking oven there Algy!! And you clearly have the muffin baking thing down pat. Nice. You're the baker on all our future trips together.
 
DeniseO30 said:
Nice build! Reflector ovens do work well if, and I say "IF" firewood is in good supply, I lost interest in using the reflector, mainly because the amount of wood and the energy it took for 2-3 campers.

Too many years passed I'm retired now and probably won't be doing any more camping trips.

I've always felt an improvement on the reflector oven would be to a back opening lid so one doesn't have to reach in the front where it's usually quite hot!
Click to expand...

Mine has that. I did not make it though - purchased from a blacksmith who made them - cloverdale forge.

https://www.cloverdaleforge.com/?s=reflector+oven
 
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Well, I haven't used a reflector oven in 25-30 years and decided to see what I can build.

The .040"/1 mm sheet aluminum just arrived yesterday for a knock down reflector oven using a tab-and-slot method to connect the panels so it will knock down flat when not in use. Like aslg's oven the general dimensions are based on Gil Gilpatrick's large sized oven with a hinged rear door panel. It will be around 15" wide but otherwise the same dimensions as aslg's oven and will use stainless steel kabob skewers as a rack instead of a solid shelf. And I expect to paint the interior of the panels with black high temperature paint to try to hold more heat and cook with a smaller fire.

I'm new enough to the forum be a little unsure if it would be appropriate to tack any posts onto this thread as the subjects are so similar and that would reduce the number of similar threads or whether to start a new build thread. Some forums prefer you adding onto an existing thread if posting similar stuff and some prefer keeping threads separate. Any thoughts would be welcome.

Best regards to all,


Lance
 
Hi Lance, feel free to use this thread or start a new one if you wish to document your build.

I've used my reflector oven a couple times since this post and it works quite well. I will pass on one thought: My reflector oven (built to Gil's large dimensions) is huge! It's great when I'm traveling with a companion but since I travel solo as much or more frequently, I kind of wish I had built one using Gil's smaller dimensions and I may yet do so. Good luck and happy building!
 
I would be interested to know if painting the inside makes any difference. I’ve never seen one painted and it is called a reflector oven. I knew someone that would occasionally polish up the inside. Like you aslg I too want to make a smaller one.
Jim
 
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