Boy Scouts

Two of my sons are in Boy Scouts.  As we all know they get to do so many fun things like, hiking, camping, fishing, etc...

Well let me tell you they also bake cookies out of cardboard ovens.  Yes I said cardboard ovens.
Since I drive them to their meetings I had the privilege of being there the day they did it and I am going to tell you how.

First you need a box with a top.  Like the ones you get from staples, you know the ones the paper reams come in.
Then you cover the inside of the box and top with aluminum foil, heavy duty aluminum foil.  If you don't have the heavy duty kind then just double up on the regular kind.  Oh and shinny side out.
Then you make slits in the top and the bottom to hold the wire rack.  You can make the rack with wire hangers ( a great way to reuse them don't you think).  You can also use wooden dowels covered in foil.  The wooden dowels are sturdier then the wire hangers.
After this you have to cut at least 3 holes at the bottom of the box, this is for ventilation purposes, to keep the fire burning.

Now we will use charcoal to bake the cookies.  For a big box we put in 9 briquettes, the small box only needs about 6.  There is actually a formula for how many briquettes to use, each briquette supplies approximately 40 degrees of heat.  So depending on your recipe you can figure out how many you will need. Formula = oven degrees divided by 40 will give you the number of briquettes you will need.  But remember if you use a smaller box to divided the number in half.

OK now for some pictures,  Because we they really did do this.

 Here they are covering the box with aluminum foil.



















Here's the top of the box being covered.  The top is actually the bottom.  Don't forget to put holes on the bottom to vent for the fire.














 Charcoal being prepared for the box.
You do not need to use a baking pan.  Since you will have aluminum on the bottom, you can place the charcoal on the aluminum.

Cookies being placed in the box.
Use parchment paper under your cookies. It helps with clean-up and to make the cookig go fater.













Cookies that were being placed in the second box.  This box was smaller in size.

 Box with the cover on.  As you can see in this picture the box is upside down.  The top of the box is where you place the charcoal  and the cookies.  The bottom of the box becomes the oven.  You can also do it the other way around.  We had one of each kind.














Here you see 2 boxes cooking.  We had a total of 4 boxes.  

 Our baked cookies.  They were really good. 

This is what happens when you place to many briquettes in a box.  This was the smaller box.  Some boys thought they could cook the cookies faster by adding more briquettes. Major FAIL.  The box caught on fire.

Here is the box, after the fact.   Remember  be careful with the amount of briquettes you use and DO THIS OUTDOORS

Apparently one boxes wire rack (wire coat hangers) fell.  So all the cookie dough mushed together to create on large lump cookie.














We had so much fun that day.  Please if you do try this let me know and take plenty of pictures.
You don't have to limit yourself to cookies either.  You can bake whatever you want.  You can do a search on the net to find out more information on cardboard ovens.

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