I thought I'd include this pic to report to all of you who gave me good advice on reflector oven cooking.  The brownies were the highlight of a very cold trip last week to the Batchewaung area.  

These brownies came off the grocery shelf.  I will never use freeze-dried crap again...no need to put up with dull taste, at best.  

prouboy

Puckster wrote on Jul 29^th, 2009 at 1:41am:

This is the result I achieved on my first field attempt...a little crispy on the edges, but done in the middle (after rotating the pan about half-way through cooking).  A little less fire and more cooking time would be my guess.  

However, cooking will vary depending on the recipe.  A soupy mixture will cook quickly on the outside/edge but will take a while to cook to the middle/bottom.  A cake-like mixture will tend to take less time to cook and but be more evenly cooked.  Also, it depends on what combination of milk/water/oil is used.

I generally use a coated pan or muffin cups.

dd

Thanks for the tips.  In addition to your good ideas, my strategy is to delegate brownie baking to dearest daughter!

prouboy

The last batch of brownies I made in the reflector oven got overdone...as they were cooking I asked "Do you think they should be BOILING in the pan?"  That was a bit TOO HOT, they cooked through and were tasty, but parts were the consistency of hard taffy when it cooled and took dynamite to pry them out of the pan.
You can regulate the cooking in your oven by where the fire is out in front of the oven.  Closer cooks the bottom of the pan more, further away cooks the top of the pan more.  SD is right about keeping a steady, even fire of moderate size...we make LOTS of kindling ahead of time to be able to feed the fire as needed with small wood.
If the top of what you are cooking is getting too brown ahead of time, try laying a pie tin, metal plate, or tin foil over the top while cooking longer to firm up the middle.  Do not over fill the cooking pan, keeping it a bit thinner will help cook the middle.  I also use a muffin pan and paper cups sometimes; the spaces between the muffin forms help transfer the heat and using paper cups makes it easy to remove the muffins when cooked (or while cooking, ahead of the rest if some are fully cooked and others are not)   

Puckster wrote on Jul 30^th, 2009 at 10:04pm:



Yummy!!!

One thing to remember with the reflector ovens, the flames of the fire play an important role so if they are higher it will cook faster.  Infrafed heat... Especially if the surface of the stove is shinny more reflected....try some cooking at a local park and get a oven themometer you would be suprised how hot the oven gets.