The first thing we cooked in our brand new 4.5 quart cast-iron camp oven was a cheese and bacon damper.

Using this Cheese and Bacon Damper recipe on YouTube, we started the fire pit in the backyard to get the coals hot, and sourced all ingredients from the cupboard – without needing to take a trip to the shops.

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Cheese and Bacon Damper Recipe

Ingredients:

• 350g self-raising flour
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• Salt
• Pepper
• 80g cheese (optional)
• 70g bacon (optional)
• 300ml milk
• 60g butter

Note: we used much more cheese and bacon than the recipe suggests above, and discovered after cooking that a little more milk and butter would make it better. 

Method:

Step 1

The first step is to start your camp fire. Heat up the hot coals nice and early to ensure the coals are super hot. Keep a shovel nearby so you can pop them just outside the fire to sit beneath your camp oven, but also shovel some coals on top of the camp oven lid.

Step 2

Line a baking tray (or trivet) with greased foil. We use the trivet that sits inside the camp oven, and wrap the foil around the whole trivet. Using a trivet means there is space between your damper and the bottom of the camp oven.

Step 3

Use your hands to combine the flour and butter in a bowl, and start pouring in the milk gradually. Keep mixing the dough with your hands or with a large spoon until there are no lumps. The dough should be sticky. Feel free to sprinkle some salt and pepper in at this point, too.

Step 4

Put extra flour on the bench, and start kneading the dough out flat.

Step 5

Sprinkle cheese and bacon over the top of the flattened dough.

Step 6

Roll the dough over the toppings, like a Christmas log cake. Slice the damper into even sized pieces.

OR, simply mix the bacon and cheese into the dough, and make the damper one large ball of… well… damper.

Step 7

Place the slices of damper on top of your trivet. Sprinkle some extra cheese and bacon over the top.

Step 8

Your damper is now ready to be placed on top of some hot coals. Shovel hot coals on top of the camp oven lid. Leave it on the coals for roughly 15 minutes before checking. If your coals are super hot, maybe check the damper around the 10 minute mark.

On our first try cooking damper, we stupidly left it on the coals for 25 minutes. The bottom of the damper was black and hard as a rock. Since then, we have left it in for about 15 minutes each time, and it’s always perfect.

Congratulations, you’ve made damper.