HOWTO bake a cake inside the skin of an orange

Here's a cute idea from CHOW and Chris Rochelle for baking chocolate cakes in campfire coals, using scooped-out orange peels as molds:

Cut the tops off about 10 oranges and scoop out the pulp. Fill the oranges three-quarters of the way with chocolate cake batter (cake mix works fine), then put the orange tops back on and wrap each orange in aluminum foil. Place directly onto the smoldering coals of the campfire, avoiding any intense flames, and cook for about 30 minutes, turning once or twice.

I've had sorbet served in an orange and pate served in an orange (AKA "meat fruit). Both were delicious. You could probably do a whole meal inside of citrus peels.

Step Up the S'more: 7 Ideas for Campfire Treats by Chris Rochelle (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: carbs • Food • howto • makers • parenting • recipes

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Frank Rose

Did this last weekend in fact. It works wonderfully and the cake is deliciously orange-infused. We used the pulp and juice as a glaze for steaks after reducing it for awhile.
http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

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- Gekko_Gecko
  
  And the point of that was……?
  - http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
    
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      Someone has no sense of humor.
Richard Lack

Don’t forget jello shots served inside an orange!
Blake Campbell

just look at it…oh wait, wrong fruit.
flappy

thank goodness! I thought this was gonna be another article about monks in Hell.
TheOtherBen

I did this once in summer camp, about 20 years ago. You get a nice flavor from the orange (and probably the smoke) but the crumb-to-crust ratio obviously changes.
hadlockk

Waiting for the stuffed poblano pepper cake post.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I also did this on a camping trip about twenty-five years ago (the same camping trip where, among other things, I got my troop lost on a hike, set a field on fire, and cooked a chicken on a spit).

The part that I missed was keeping the top of the orange and using it as sort of a lid. The lower part of the cake was delicious. The upper part of the cake tasted like smoke and ashes.
awjt

Don’t forget to jam a hunk of dark chocolate down inside the batter before you bake it!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It would be easier to just eat a chocolate orange.
  - awjt
    
    I admire your practicality. Remind me never to let you do the cooking when we go camping.
gsilas

Why not do this in an oven? Why coals?
Is this supposed to be “steampunk” cooking?
- Cory Trevor
  
  Why do it at all?
  - awjt
    
    Why even eat. I mean at this point, it’s overkill.
Danielle Pershouse

I did this at camp when I was a kid. We used white cake batter and it was delicious.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000891518553 Natasha Aleman

I tried that ages ago when I was in Girl Scouts, it wasn’t that successful. I ended up with a burnt, orange infused chocolate pudding. After that culinary mishap my troop stuck to making s’mores.
http://twitter.com/angela_la_la Miss Angela

Tips from someone who’s actually done in a campfire recently: 3/4 full is way too much batter if you don’t want it to ooze out the sides. Try 1/2 full. Also, you can use the juice from the fruit in the batter itself for more orangey-chocolate deliciousness.

One box of cake mix makes a dozen or so oranges, so beware of that if you’re camping solo.
- penguinchris
  
  One box of cake mix makes a dozen or so oranges, so beware of that if you’re camping solo.
  
  I don’t see the issue here…?
Heather C

When I was in Girl Scouts, we made a cake type thing on the fire, but we used cleaned out cans, (like the ones used for canned beans or chili.) we filled the cans about half way with pie filling and then added a few tablespoons of dry cake mix on top. It’s pretty delicious if you have been eating camp food for a week or two.
http://www.zazzle.com/InfinitudeTortoises* An Infinitude of Tortoises

This reminds me of one of my very favorite recipes of yore, from the 1967 edition of Fieldbook for Boys and Men, wherein the same technique, using either an orange skin or a hollowed-out onion hemisphere (I’d opt for the onion!), is applied to the cooking of an egg. “Poached Eggs à la Boy Scouts” is how I always think of it.