Baking in the Backcountry -- FAIL

Our setup: pot, Trangia burner with Clickstand & Windscreen,
fry pan set on the foil ring to keep it off the bottom of the pan.

Oh yeah, nothing better after supper in the backcountry than warm, fresh-baked muffins.  Steamy hot with melted chocolate chips, satisfying that craving after a strenuous hike.  An awesome baker at home, Tree is the perfect person to create such a delight... or so we thouht.  Having watched a video by Sean (Shug) Emery (Shugemery on YouTube, also at http://www.seanemery.com) about backcountry baking, we were inspired.  We decided to give it a go with a test run of muffing making at home with our backpacking cookset.

Batter ready to bake.

Notice the burned edges

Melted handle of our MSR pot.

We used our stove (Clickstand with Trangia spirit burner), our pot and a fry pan raised off the bottom of the pot with a ring of aluminum foil.  We dutifully filled our muffin papers with the btter, put the lid on and let it go.  Very quickly we smelled something burning.  Too hot!  We closed the simmer ring a bit and checked back ten minutes later.  BURNT!  And the parts of the muffins that weren't burnt tasted charred.  No one was going to want to eat that.  Then, because the simmer ring was too hot to manipulate closed, we were unable to use it to snuff out the flame.  So I put the pot lid over the flame...  and the lid handle melted.  Great.

Our pot in our cozy...  We forgot that when boiling water,
the max temp for the pot is 212 degrees.  With baking it is
more like 350-400 degrees.

Not to be easily defeated, we decided to try again with the simmer ring open only a little.  Well the summer ring has to be open about half way, otherwise it will just snuff out the flame.  It took three times before we could keep the flame going.  Then when we again smelled something burning, we decided to take the pot off the flame and put it in the pot cozy we had fashioned last summer (you can look up how to make a pot cozy on YouTube... they are great).  So the cozy was there for a minute when I smelled something melting.  Melting plastic.  Melting pot cozy.  Melting dreams of warm muffins for breakfast!!!!!!!

May your cook pot NEVER look like this!

Alas, a once-reliable pot sent to the landfill.  In our optimism and hopes for warm baked goods in the backcountry,  we managed to ruin our pot cozy and our pot.  And now, we come to you, older and wiser to the ways of backcountry cooking.  We will keep you posted with recipes that do work.  Until then, we will see you on the trail!

- Mama Bear