The closest I’ve come to the Wild West was my Rockwall church’s annual father-child campout. One year, around age 13, our group made the trip to the Lazy L&L Campground in New Braunfels. Lawless, we kids bathed in the Guadalupe River, ate naked white bread and ham sandwiches, and returned to our tents well after the stars rose. Amid the chaos shines one memory of order: the ceremonious cooking of peach cobbler.
One of the trip leaders, a Boy Scout parent, tended to the three Dutch ovens that boiled with the syrup of baking fruit. After what felt like hours hovering nearby, we formed a line and each reverently received a scoop of cobbler. The golden-brown crust singed the roof of my mouth, a pain that was worth it for the summer taste of roasted peaches bathed in cinnamon. This ritual taught me that camp cooking can be a gourmet affair.
The bill that established peach cobbler as the official Texas State Cobbler in 2013 called it “one of the distinctive flavors of the Lone Star State.” And no group has spent more time honing the craft of campfire cobbler than Texas Scout troops, which teach cooking methods in Scout training, campouts, and competitions. “Honestly, I don’t know people who don’t like peaches,” says Nelson Piercy, a 15-year-old Boy Scout in Rockwall’s Troop 690. From mid-May to mid-August, peaches and their accompanying festivals blossom throughout Texas—just in time for summer camps and outdoor cookouts. The seasonal treat is what Piercy argues makes peach cobbler “a Boy Scout special.”
Across Texas, summer camps for Scouts hold unofficial annual Scoutmaster Cobbler Cookoffs. Prizes for these contests vary—from boasting rights to serving spoons painted gold—but everyone wins when sampling the champion’s cobbler.
“I always told my Boy Scouts, ‘Whatever mom cooks at home, we can cook camping,’” says Rick Beecher, former Scoutmaster for Amarillo’s Troop 10. “We’d show them, and the next time we went out, they’d make it themselves.”
Scouts then have the chance to show off their cobbler supremacy at annual gatherings of various troops. During their Spring Camporee Cookoffs, Scouts in the Golden Spread Council, which spans the Northern Texas Panhandle and parts of Oklahoma, are pitted against one another for peach glory.
Amidst the plentitude of Dutch oven dishes, one must wonder why peach cobbler graces the picnic tables of almost every Boy Scout campout. Perhaps it’s the magic of how so few ingredients yield a complex taste and texture. For this reason, peach cobbler dump cakes, which replace biscuits or crust with easier-to-use cake mix, are especially favored among younger Scouts.
Despite the recipe’s simplicity, Piercy advises that perfecting peach cobbler takes practice. When he first attempted the dish, he ended up eating charred peaches swaddled in a blackened crust. “Sometimes it turns out horrible,” he says. “Sometimes it turns out absolutely amazing.”
Peach Cobbler Dump Cake
Courtesy Ken Kilcoin
Scout Coordinator, Troop 650, San Antonio
First Vice President of the Lone Star Dutch Oven Society
Ingredients:
1 stick (8 tbsp.) of melted butter
2 (30-oz.) cans peaches, drained
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 box Butter Golden Cake Mix
Directions:
Drain the peaches, then distribute them in the bottom of a 12-inch Dutch oven. Sprinkle on the spices and vanilla. After a gentle stir, spread the cake mix in an even level above the peaches. Cut the stick butter into thin pats or melt it, then sprinkle it evenly over the mix.
Use a chimney starter to heat charcoal briquettes. When the briquettes have nearly turned gray, their heat should last for 40 minutes—the cobbler’s cook time. Nestle nine coals beneath the oven and lay 18 coals on its lid.
To allow steam from the boiling peaches to escape, offset the oven’s lid by about a quarter of an inch. Remember to check whether the coal briquettes are dwindling. When the pieces of coal on the Dutch oven lid have shrunk to about half their initial size, up the heat by adding more briquettes.
Rotate the oven every ten minutes to ensure an evenly toasted crust and consistent bake for the peaches. Bake for 30-40 minutes and resist the urge to stir. Yields 12-14 servings.
Peach Cobbler
Courtesy Celina Matabuena de Garcia
Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 363, New Braunfels
Ingredients:
2 (30-oz.) cans of peaches
1 box of vanilla (yellow) cake mix
1 can (12-oz.) of Sprite
1 (8 tbsp.) stick of butter
Directions:
Dump the peaches into the Dutch oven, then bury them in a box of vanilla cake mix. Gently mix one can of Sprite with the cake mix. Arrange thin slices of butter evenly on top.
Layer coal briquettes beneath and above the Dutch oven. Every 15 minutes, turn the pot 90 degrees, and rotate the lid a quarter turn. Keep up the good work for about 45 minutes, until the cake looks golden brown. Yields 8-10 servings.
For variety, mix one can of apples and one can of peaches to fill the cobbler.
