I wanted to try baking a couple items over a stove and have been looking around at different ways of doing it. The Jello mold oven and the outback oven both seem fairly popular. Would love to hear any tips for using or constructing an oven.

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Looks good.
Since your going to be "tinkering", I suggest you try making my version of the Flashing Oven?
Cheap and works great. You can cook on stove, over coals or fire, and a little rain won't bother you either. Here's the general plans, and a link to pics. If your interested, PM with any specific questions? I also have a few ideas for an "upgrade" to the original ;)

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Make steam oven.  Put a small amount of water in a large pot.  Place the item to bake in something smaller and place it it the large pot floating on the water.

I highy recommend the Outback Oven because that has what has worked for me ;)

"Steam Baking" is a easy way too go, although I don't think you can get the crisp" crust on breads that a "dry" heat bake will give you.
Here's a link to a silicone steaming set:   (You need to Login or Register

Before I built my version of flashing stove, I tried the pot in pot method.
You need a diffuser or a HEAVY outer pot, because on thin lightweight pot, you could burn out the bottom.
You basically use some round stones ( I used a V shape piece of hydraulic tubing" to hold the inner pot up off of the bottom of outer pot.
With the outer pots lid on, it's sort of like a "oven". You can crack the lid, just enough to let the moisture out, which helps develop that crust we like on baked goods.
 Worked well, but its hard to know if your getting enough or to much heat. You kind of have too peek and "guess".
I liked the Flashing stove with the modifications I made. You can visually check without losing a lot of heat, and the mini oven thermometer makes it easy to keep heat steady.
 Lots of ways to go, all are cheap to make, and one of the styles will fit YOUR style of cooking.

Thanks for the heads up. I did a few searches but missed the flashing oven. ST- sent you a PM

Was leaning towards using dry heat. The pot in pot method seems pretty nice in the fact that very little extra gear is needed. Sounds like it is harder to get the timing down for baking though?

On the outback oven style- How does the pan lid effect cooking? is it an issue getting a uniform temp on top and bottom of food, or cooking evenly? I assume that by visually inspecting your food you would also lose the heat as ST described earlier? Practice and timing makes perfect?

Browntrout...Cooks pretty evenly, IMHO. I usually finish it up with the inner cover off-crustier! Heat loss is a yes, but not a huge issue with practice and I have never run out of fuel due to that! The pans also serve as our frying pan. Toyed around with the idea of hole sawing the cover to sort out the crust issue, but I am a little particular about my bread. ;) Makes good pizza too. ;D

I'll echo support for the Outback Oven.  We cook cakes, cornbread, brownies, muffins & biscuits in ours, and have never had a complaint.  I use an MSR Dragonfly for the stove, and find that baking with the OUtback Oven is easy and fuel efficient.  It does take some practice, but so does baking at home.

Quote:

Steam Baking" is a easy way too go, although I don't think you can get the crisp" crust on breads that a "dry" heat bake will give you.

True. When my wife baked biscuits, she first browned the outside in the frying pan, then baked them.   Turned out great.  And does not require an additional piece of equipment.

My outback oven was one of the best investments I've made. I'm the earlly rizer in camp, so I usually have coffee ready and something baked before the rest get up. This bumps my status in camp up to somewhere between superhero and a god. And it's so easy (don't tell them). It does require a stove with a very low simmer so it uses very little fuel. It has it's own thermometer to control the heat. Most things take 15 to 20 minutes to bake. I use a lot of store bought just add water mixes, the ones that come in sealed packets. Just pour a whole muffin mix in and bake it like a cake. I also use the pan as my main frypan and the set comes with a handy cutting board. It is fairly compact and lightweight.

azalea wrote on Aug 19^th, 2009 at 1:44am:

[quote] True. When my wife baked biscuits, she first browned the outside in the frying pan, then baked them.   Turned out great.  And does not require an additional piece of equipment.

As usual, I am impressed by the wealth of knowledge. I also like hearing about different ways of doing the same thing.

Yep woodsy I definitely feel the same way about the Outback, dual purpose fry pan, and the just add H2O products...dont be afraid to hit the egg necessary ones too-freezed dried eggs can be substituted for the real ones( my best recollection is 1.5 TSP FD egg mix in .25 cup H2O=one egg)...this opens up the doors for cakes both stored bought and from scratch-say ginger bread, or chocolate chocolate chip berry cake, or peach yellow cake...pound cake is on the list to adapt ;). Beware recipes and store bought cake mixes need to be reduced as most will not fit into the smaller Outback's pan-one trail cake=1/2 box mix with the Betty c. and Pilsbury mixes-experiment with the from scratch ones. Yeasted breads are also a real possibility, its a piece of BREAD ;D, I use both bread machine mixes( they fit) and from scratch. The bisquit thing for me is accomplished by mixing in a zip lock and then cutting a corner off the bag and squeezing dough into the pan-think cake decoration- a bit less messy IMHO. Cakes and corn bread(Jiffy, 2 will fit) I mix directly in the pan. Yeasted bread I mix in zip lock and rise in bag or in the Outback(on low heat) depending on weather/temps. I to use the top pan for a cutting board, saves on the no stick surface in bottom pan. I also use the pans to store the leftovers, if there are any; one can stretch a larger zip lock so that the pans can fix inside-be sure to cure/dry the goodies b4hand so those crusts dont get soggy 8-) and the goodies dont get smushed in pack! YUM YUM ;D And backed/poached fish(LAKERS and others) I put fish in open foil boat with herbs and other specials(butter, lemon juice, and such) and add H2O and cook in  the oven-an alternative to pan frying ;) As far as the stove that I use it is a MSR dragon fly-very control-able simmer-er/heat, I just wish they were quieter :o...tried Optimus but had issues with clogging jet multiple time for every meal on the first trip-it got returned when I returned-may have been my fuel...but I have had no problemas with the MSR for many years! We also do pizza too-Betty C. crust mix...mix in pan, a little olive oil in pan and in dough w/ additional herbs of choice, then partially cook crust, dried tomato pieces on crust and sauce and toppings...go easy on toppings so the crust does not get soggy. :D

Marlin and E1 else thanks for the tips.

Going just on intuition, the outback oven has seemed to me like good bet for a lightweight, packable, multi-use addition to the kitchen gear; and based on the reviews I do intend to try one in the future. Unable to pull the trigger on buying one yet though.

So far I have been unable to find any foil insulation in my area. I did call one of the companies that manufacture the stuff, and they did not recommend it for use around food, near flame or for temps over 200 deg. The guy I talked with said the foil is 99% aluminum with 1% of some type of fiber that wasn't good to breath the fumes of. He didn't mention anything about the plastic bubble wrap. Perhaps after fully heating the bubble wrap foil a few times the problem of noxious fumes is solved? He recommended trying aluminum foil to build an oven.

Recently I aquired a 6.5 cup jello mold from canoefly on the bwca site. Since I only wanted one jello mold, and he had some extras from ebay, it seemed like a good deal for us both, thanks canoefly! Made a heat deflector yesterday from a $1 round stovetop burner ring by using 3 stainless steel bolts for a riser (based partially on a plan from canoefly), and put a pot lid with vent slightly open on top to trap the heat. We have a silicone baking sheet, and plan to try incorporating that into use for a lid in the future, perhaps with a way to view the contents without fully removing the lid. The whole contraption with a metal lid weighs just over a pound, not including the nuts and bolts.

I tried the oven out last night with a Krusteaz, fat free, just add water, honey cornbread mix. I used an MSR dragonfly, and set the burner as low as it would go without the flame going out. The stove's wind shield fit nicely around the oven. A small baking thermometer placed outside on top of the lid confirmed a temp of around 200 deg. Forty-five minutes later the cornbread was still not done, and I slowly kicked the heat up a bit until the thermometer read 250. Long story short, I ended up finishing the approx 1" thick cornbread indoors in the kitchen oven. The bottom and top edges finally came out lightly browned.  

I did bake a few 'control' muffins indoors to see how I liked the mix. They are edible, but I can honestly say that I prefer the Jiffy mix that requires egg and milk. Will try that one with powdered egg next time. The final results on this round of indoor and outdoor baking was fairly similar, although I did finish off for a couple minutes indoors.

One thing that I initially forgot to do was to quarter turn the pan to insure even baking and will remember to do so sooner on the next test. 'Poking' the cornbread with a metal skewer (out of toothpics) confirmed some parts were cooking faster.

It seems that I was afraid of burning the cornbread on my first try based on the 1.25 hr. long baking time and undercooked results? I did wait about 25 minutes before taking the lid off to check it the first time, but ended up checking several times throughout the process. Next time I will try kicking the heat up a notch, add a few minutes for preheat, and keep my fingers crossed.  [smiley=dankk2.gif]

Well I tried the oven again a couple days later, had the thermometer up to 275-300 and it worked fine.

Diane used the jello mold three times last week for cornbread, an apple cinnamon muffin mix and a bisquick muffin mix. This definitely changes everything.  :) It was worth bringing along.


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The dragonfly growls pretty good when cooking in the Outback-the heat diffuser actually glows red. Turn the heat up!

Yea, the outback oven is the way to go. I like to use it with MSR's pocket rocket because of ease of use and excellent simmer capability. There's just something about flickin a bic and having a blowtorch or a steady tiny flame without priming, pumping etc. After I got the outback I found having two stoves is really nice as I could be baking that pan of lemon poppy seed muffins and dinner or afternoon coffee all at the same time.

doesn't anyone pack in a real oven anymore?

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;D