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Campfire Cooking: Rob Roy Cookies

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October 15, 2014 by Homestead Lady 12 Comments

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If you’re looking for something new to grill, how about cookies? Yeah, you read that right. Do some serious campfire cooking with these gluten free Rob Roy Cookies in cast iron.cookies on a plate, cookie pie in cast iron pan, leaf wrapped cookie dough

Campfire Cooking

Campfire cooking, I have discovered, is part science and part art. And part smoke in your eyes. I’ve been trying to improve my campfire cooking skills this past year as its not something I grew up doing.

Fortunately, I married an Eagle Scout so my husband has contributed his expertise with fire (he’s a bit of a pyro anyway) and we’ve experimented with all kinds of dinners and side dishes. I finally decided it was time for dessert!

Rob Roy Cookies

I first came across the recipe for Rob Roy Cookies in Amy Cox-Jones’s fine, whole foods, seasonal eating cookbook, A World Of Wisdom. I adapted the recipe a bit to fit our family’s tastes but the recipe was great on its own. This cookbook is fabulous for seasonal eating ideas, especially if you have a family.

Other Helpful Campfire Resources

Outdoor Cooking and Fire Safety

Natural Beeswax Fire Starters

Best Firewood: Trees to Plant & Forage

Campfire Cooking – Rob Roy Cookies!

oatmeal cookies

Campfire Cooking: Rob Roy Cookies

Homestead Lady
Rob Roy’s are a traditional Scottish oatmeal cookie but these are prepared on open flame. Use cast iron pan or a more traditional method of leaf-wrapped cookies on the open flame grill.
Print This Recipe Pin This Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes mins
Cook Time 10 minutes mins
Leaf Wrap Time 20 minutes mins
Total Time 50 minutes mins
Course Healthy Recipes
Cuisine Dessert
Servings 2 Dozen

Ingredients
  

  • 1 Cup Honey
  • 1 Tsp Sea Salt
  • 1/2 Tsp Cloves
  • 1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
  • 2 Fresh Eggs
  • 2 Tbsp. Sour Cream
  • 2 1/2 Cup Flour We use Bob's Gluten Free Flour
  • 1 Tsp Baking Soda
  • 2 Cups Rolled Oats
  • 1 Cup Raisins - Optional
  • 1 Cup Chocolate Chips Nuts, Whatever - Optional

Instructions
 

  • Mix all ingredients and place by the spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet.
  • Bake at 375 F for 10 to 12 minutes.
  • OR follow the directions below for a campfire cooking experience.
  • COOKIE PIE IN A SKILLET OR DUTCH OVEN
  • Build your fire until you have a nice mess of coals.
  • Take a large, cast iron pan and add butter – grease its bottom and up and down the sides. You can also use a Dutch Oven because you’ll need a lid anyway. You can portion out individual cookies or, to save time and create a cookie pie, just mush the batter in its entirety into the bottom of the pan.
  • Put the pan on the coals, cover with a cast iron lid (or another cast iron pan), place coals on the top and bake about 20-30 minutes.
  • There’s no exact cook time with any campfire cooking because speed depends on how hot your coals are. Check your cookie pie after about 15 minutes to make sure its humming along. If you’re afraid the bottom is too hot, put another cast iron pan underneath your cookie pan to provide some protection. You can remove some coals, too, if its looking to burn.
  • LEAF WRAPPED COOKIES ON THE GRILL
  • Gather one edible leaf per cookie (like grape leaves), as big a leaf as big as you can find. You can wash them, if you like.
  • Oil the back of the clean leaf with a high quality, high smoke point oil like avocado or olive. We did a batch of leaves that we pre-soaked for a few hours in plain water to see if they’d keep the cookies from sticking to the leaf. The results were basically the same for pre-soaking and oiling. Oiling is faster and adds a bit of healthy fat.
  • Place the leaf face down so that its back is looking up at you. It’s possible to wrap them the other way around, but the leaf wants to curve back on itself.
  • Place a 1-2 inch ball of cookie dough inside your leaf and squish it flattish (about 1/2″ thick) with your fingers.
  • Fold over each side of the leaf and then fold down the top. Most leaves were easy to secure with the stem by gently curving up the stem. Poke two holes, about a half an inch apart on the leaf, with the cookie dough nestled inside. Slip the stem through the two holes and it should hold well enough. Sometimes you may need to use a small twig to hold things in place, but just do your best.
  • You can place these cookies into a greased, cast iron pan or Dutch Oven and follow the instructions above for the cookie pie.
  • OR you can preheat a flat stone in the coals and place the cookies on top of it to bake. Cover the cookies on the stone with a cast iron pan and bake for 20-30 minutes, checking them after about 10 minutes.
  • Remove them to a cooling rack or an obliging log and wait for them to be temperate enough to handle. The cookies taste best when they’re still warm, but they might stick to the leaf more if they’re not completely cooled. Its your call. We aren't above scraping out the cookie remains with our teeth, but you might be more couth than we are.


Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Cast Iron or Leaf-Wrapped?

If you’re looking for a bit of adventure and want to try some campfire cooking, this recipe lends itself well to a cast iron pan and/or being leaf-wrapped and placed on a stone in the coals.

My kids had so much fun peeling away the leaf to see what was inside. For an even more entertaining option, instead of simply dropping these cookies off to a friend or neighbor, invite them over to have a hand in making these campfire cooking creations.

FYI, these cookies work for breakfast, too. Campfire Cooking l Rob Roy Cookies make a great breakfast food l Homestead Lady

Campfire Cooking Requires Good Coals

The hardest part so far for me with campfire cooking is making good coals and keeping them going. From what I read, that IS the hardest part.

We have a 3-foot in diameter concrete circle that serves as our outdoor cooking area. Its fabulous for safety and even for some cooking, especially homemade s’mores (the true purpose of any campfire, after all). BUT my husband and I have decided that we’d like to create a kind of trough for outdoor cooking.

There’s s’more and meat grilling campfire cooking and then there’s campfire COOKING. You need room and you need coal production to get an entire meal cranked out. For more information on how to cook over an open flame, try this book. 

To learn to build a good cook fire, click here.

Design so You Don’t Have to Use Charcoal

My husband has designed a hip-level, cement trough where we’ll keep a fire going at one end. In the middle, we’ll move active coals into a pile. At the end, we’ll have various items cooking, adding coals as we need them.

Even with this design, we’ll still need to move quickly to get the coals distributed and cooking at an even temperature.

Most people do their campfire cooking with charcoal briquettes. That’s a great way to keep the temperature regulated but they only sell them to people with money, sadly. Besides, if we hit a time where they aren’t available to buy, I don’t want my cool campfire cooking skill to fall apart.

I get very Caroline Ingalls-y over this, like I did with the line drying. I’m GONNA figure it out!

Campfire Cooking Options for Cookies

For these cookies, you have a few cooking options in the outdoor fire (tell me if you know of one that I’ve missed). The first one is pretty straight forward.

Homemade Raisins

We used our own raisins, of which we are justly proud this year – its the first time we’ve made them from our very own grapes. This process turned out to be super simple, if a little sticky.

Raisins make a great food storage item that’s simple to grow, harvest, process, and preserve right on the homestead.

–>>How to Make Your Own Raisins<<–

raisins in a bowl on a table

Cookie Pie in a Skillet or Dutch Oven

  1. Build your fire until you have a nice mess of coals.
  2. Take a large, cast iron pan and add butter – grease its bottom and up and down the sides. You can also use a Dutch Oven because you’ll need a lid anyway. You can portion out individual cookies or, to save time and create a cookie pie, just mush the batter in its entirety into the bottom of the pan.
  3. Put the pan on the coals, cover with a cast iron lid (or another cast iron pan), place coals on the top and bake about 20-30 minutes.
  4. There’s no exact cook time with any campfire cooking because speed depends on how hot your coals are. Check your cookie pie after about 15 minutes to make sure its humming along. If you’re afraid the bottom is too hot, put another cast iron pan underneath your cookie pan to provide some protection. You can remove some coals, too, if its looking to burn.

    Campfire Cooking l Rob Roy Cookies l Can make them in cast iron over hot coals l Homestead Lady

Leaf-Wrapped Cookies on the Grill

If you want to create gift wrapped, leaf cookies, then the first thing you need to do is locate some large, non-poisonous leaves.

We’ve tried maple, sunflower, and grape because that’s what we have in our yard. The sunflower works OK but is really brittle. The maple is fine but not very tasty (you inevitable get some leaf with your cookie as you eat).

The best leaves to use are grape leaves, which are traditionally used to make dolmas so you know they’re edible! Campfire Cooking l Rob Roy Cookies l How to wrap your cookie dough for campfire cooking l Homestead Lady

To Wrap Your Cookie Dough

You can check out the graphic below and follow the steps, or read these instructions below:

  1. Gather one leaf per cookie, as big a leaf as big as you can find. You can wash them, if you like.
  2. Oil the back of the clean leaf with a high quality, high smoke point oil like avocado or olive. We once used a batch of leaves that we pre-soaked for a few hours in plain water to see if they’d keep the cookies from sticking to the leaf. The results were basically the same for pre-soaking and oiling. Oiling is faster and adds a bit of healthy fat.
  3. Place the leaf face down so that its back is looking up at you. It’s possible to wrap them the other way around, but the leaf wants to curve back on itself.
  4. Place a 1-2 inch ball of cookie dough inside your leaf and squish it flattish (about 1/2″ thick) with your fingers.
  5. Fold over each side of the leaf and then fold down the top. Most leaves were easy to secure with the stem by gently curving up the stem.
  6. Poke two holes, about a half an inch apart on the leaf, with the cookie dough nestled inside.
  7. Slip the stem through the two holes and it should hold well enough. Sometimes you may need to use a small twig to hold things in place, but just do your best.

Baking the Cookies on the Flames

  1. You can place these cookies into a greased, cast iron pan or Dutch oven and follow the instructions above for the cookie pie.
  2. Or you can preheat a flat stone in the coals and place the cookies on top of it to bake. Cover the cookies on the stone with a cast iron pan and bake for 20-30 minutes, checking them after about 10 minutes.
  3. Remove them to a cooling rack or an obliging log and wait for them to be temperate enough to handle.

The cookies taste best when they’re still warm, but they might stick to the leaf more if they’re not completely cooled. It’s your call.

We weren’t above scraping out the cookie remains with our teeth, but you might be more couth than we are.

—>>>Pin This for Post for Later<<<—

grilled cookies in a cast iron pan, on a plate, and wrapped in grape leaves

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Filed Under: Fall Foods & Preservation, Healthy Recipes, Summer Crafts & Projects Tagged With: Gluten Free, Healthy Treat, Homemade, Homestead Family, Homestead Traditions, How to Homestead, Off Grid, Outdoor Cooking

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Angi @ SchneiderPeeps says

    October 17, 2014 at 6:50 am

    These look amazing! I bet my family would love making them. I’m married to an Eagle Scout, too, and 3 of my 4 sons are Eagles with my youngest working his way there.

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      October 17, 2014 at 7:44 pm

      Its funny, though, when he’s not home my 12 year old daughter is the fire guru. Really, though, if there were girl Eagle Scouts, she’d be one. She’s really a cool kid.

      Reply
      • Angi @ SchneiderPeeps says

        October 21, 2014 at 1:46 pm

        All girls should know how to do certain things and lighting fire is one of them. It’s good to intimidate the boys a bit. 😉 Thanks for sharing at Simple Lives Thursday; hope to see you again this week.

        Reply
        • Homestead Lady says

          October 21, 2014 at 2:06 pm

          I agree, Angi!

          Reply
  2. Wendy says

    October 17, 2014 at 8:10 am

    I learned SO much from this post! Rob Roy cookies? Never heard of them and now I HAVE to make them. 🙂 Cookies wrapped and cooked in leaves…over a campfire?!? Wow! I am not exaggerating my enthusiasm. This urban/suburban indoorsy baker has never baked anything outside, other than pizza on a bbq grill. I would love to try this! Good to know I can bake them in the oven too. 🙂

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      October 17, 2014 at 7:43 pm

      So glad it will be a new adventure, Wendy! And, you know, I’ve never tried pizza on the grill but that’s a great idea!

      Reply
      • Wendy says

        October 25, 2014 at 11:13 am

        A pizza takes minutes to bake on a covered grill, so be careful. I think it is because the temp gets so much higher than in the oven, but 3-5 minutes does it for me! 🙂

        Reply
        • Homestead Lady says

          October 25, 2014 at 2:58 pm

          Wow, that’s not time at all – thank you for telling me! I stink at the grill because I get so distracted I always burn stuff. I’ll just have to stand there and wait if its really so short a time!

          Reply
  3. Nikki @ NikSnacks says

    October 22, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    Holy Cow! I’ve never wrapped cookies in leaves before and cooked them over coals! Wow! I’m pretty much speechless right now.

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      October 22, 2014 at 9:11 pm

      Well, they don’t turn out as lovely as your creations but they’re warm and gooey and a nice break from marshmallows. 🙂

      Reply
  4. Kat says

    May 21, 2019 at 7:24 pm

    Just gave this a go…cookie was blackened to a crisp along edges and bottom after 10 minutes on coals, and the center was nowgere near done…it was just mush…i had even had the pan a little above the cokes using two other branches but it burned anyway. I realize this is an old post but if you got ideas on how to fix this I’d love to hear them

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      May 22, 2019 at 4:31 am

      Ah, open flame cooking! It’s always an adventure. Let’s see if we can figure this out…

      If you have a cast iron tortilla pan you can place the wrapped cookies on top of it, then put the pan on the stone near the coals. The cast iron will more evenly distribute the heat. Your problem sounds like heat distribution. You can also try a cast iron saute pan inverted over the cookies to trap the heat over the top. Be sure to keep the stone to the side of the coals so it doesn’t overheat.

      Did you try all those ideas already? Should we brainstorm some more? Just let me know!

      Reply

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