A Pie Per Week: Campfire Pie

Brian:  We knew we were going camping this weekend, and this posed two unique challenges for us.  First of all, we had to figure out how to cook in a unique environment, and secondly we were far from home for our normal pool of pie recipients.

Angie:  If you search for campfire pies, there are lots of recipes.  However, many of them were just pies where you just heated up a pie filling, or s'more pies that you actually cooked at home.  I wanted to try something a bit more challenging.  However, we also wanted to make sure it tasted good.  I knew a normal pie crust would easily burn on a campfire so I thought using a graham cracker crust would be best.  I really love magic cookies bars my mom made when I was young and thought it could be easily modified for our camp pie.

Brian:  Cooking a pie over a fire can be difficult, because it is very difficult to control the heat.  You also don't have an oven, so you need to account for that as well.

Angie:  I added the graham cracker crumbs and butter, and this was easy to get started.  Next I added a can of sweetened condensed milk, and I improvised the ingredients because we wanted it to be s'more like and the kids didn't want the coconut you usually find in the bar cookies.

Brian:  Next she had me measure out 1/2 cup of Caramel chips, chocolate chips and vanilla chips.  We also added a full cup of marshmallows on top.  I have a funny relationship with marshmallows.  I find room temperature marshmallows disgusting, but if you roast them or melt them... they are delicious!

Angie:  Since we didn't have an oven at our disposal, we cooked the pie in our iron skillet, and then covered it with aluminum foil to simulate the oven cooking environment.  Because we only had one iron skillet we had to cook them one at a time.  We started with 20 minutes and then kept adding more time until it looked right on the top.  I was so hoping the bottom wasn't going to be totally burned!  We let it cool for an hour or so.  As much as you can cool a pie outside in 90 degree heat ;)  I thought it turned out delicious!! It all melded together very nicely.  I loved the caramel addition to the normal s'more ingredients!  

Brian:  This pie was great!  I was worried about the crust burning or just a part of the pie, because we had an uneven heating surface, but everybody seemed to love it!

Pie Recipient of the Week

Our pie recipient of the week is Rachel!  This is a first for us as we wanted to give the pie to a complete stranger, and complete a random act of kindness.  She was always very friendly at the gate, and when we gave her the pie she said, "You have just become my favorite campers ever!"  We may try to do a little more of this, I know it always restores my faith in mankind when I am a benefactor of compassion from a complete stranger, so hopefully we did the same for Rachel.

Recipe

1 1/2 cup graham crackers crumbs

1/2 cup butter

14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup caramel chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1 cup mini marshmallows

Over a smoldering campfire place an aluminum pie pan in an iron skillet or dutch over.  Melt butter in pan, then add graham cracker crumbs, mix together and press to the bottom of the pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk over the crust.  Distribute all the chips evenly over the milk, then add the mini marshmallows over the top.  Use a lid if you have one or use aluminum foil to cover the pan.  Cook for about 40 minutes over the coals until pie is bubbly on top.  Let cool, slice and serve!

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