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This is my go to dessert from the dutch oven. Most folks instantly gravitate to something like a peach cobbler, which is great and all, but anyone can open a can of peaches and dump in a cake mix and some butter. I don’t mean to rag on cobblers. I really like cobbler, and I’m sure we’ll be covering cobblers here in detail. However, if you put this cake and a cobbler next to each other in a gathering of people, this will be gone first. Wanna know why? I’ll tell you. Chocolate. And pecans.

Dutch Oven Mississippi Mud Cake

A yellow cake with gooey chocolate "mud" seeping through it. Garnished with pecans and melted chocolate chips.
Course Dessert
Servings 6 Servings
Author Noel

Ingredients

Cake

  • 2 Cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 Cups granulated sugar
  • 1 TBSP baking powder
  • 1/2 Cup dry milk powder
  • 3/4 Cup water
  • 1/2 Cup oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Topping

  • 10 oz semisweet chocolate chips
  • 3/4 Cup pecans

Mud

  • 1/2 Cup cocoa powder
  • 2 Cups brown sugar
  • 1 Cup hot water
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

At Home

  • Mix the dry ingredients for the cake in a gallon zip top bag.
  • Mix the dry ingredients for the mud (leaving out the water, oil, eggs and vanilla) in a separate gallon zip top bag.

At Camp

  • Start your charcoal. You'll need about 26 briquettes.
  • Line the bottom and sides of a 12″ Dutch oven with heavy foil. I had to use two pieces of foil to cover the whole Dutch oven. I wrapped the seam between the two pieces two or three times to keep it from leaking.
  • Prepare the cake: In a bowl, add the rest of the cake ingredients (water, oil, eggs, vanilla) to the dry mix you made at home. Stir together. Pour into the dutch oven.
  • Prepare the mud: In the same bowl, mix the dry mud mix you prepared at home with the hot water and vanilla. (In a pinch, we have used cold water and just mixed the mud really well.) Pour mud mixture over cake batter.
  • Bake: Cover the dutch oven and bake using 8-10 briquettes on bottom and 14-16 briquettes on top for 45 or until the cake is set. Rotate the dutch oven and lid every 10-15 minutes.
  • When cake is almost done, sprinkle chocolate chips and pecans on top of cake, cover and let that melt for about 5 minutes. Serve warm.

Written by Noel

9 Comments

Chutes & Ladders: An Epic Road Trip | The Tall and Short of It

[…] The main reason we were in Moab was for a big “Dirty Thirty” bash/cousin reunion with Noel’s side of the family. Overnight a couple of siblings and cousins had arrived, so we all went to breakfast at Jailhouse Cafe. After that, we planned to hike Delicate Arch with the kids, but some plans got changed around and Ellen fell off a picnic table and cut her head. Instead, we hung out at the campsite doctoring her and monitoring her for signs of concussion. While we were doing this, Cooper was messing around in the car, fell out of the trunk and hit his head and got a nasty goose-egg. (Note: We did a lot of semi-dangerous stuff on this trip and hanging out at the campsite is when people got injured.) Morale was low; we were all very hot and annoyed. Everyone else had spent the morning at Mill Creek (or the shoot the chutes as my dad calls them) and we were a little jealous, so after some lunch we headed there ourselves. It was so hot that everyone ended up joining us even though they’d already been there. While we were all sliding down the “natural waterslides” Noel said, “If I were to name this trip I’d call it ‘Chutes and Ladders.'”That night even more family arrived and we had a big dutch oven dinner and Dirty Thirty Mud Cake (AKA Mississippi Mud Cake). […]

Reply
Aileen

This cake was pretty good but if I made it again, I would add salt to the cake batter. It was kinda tasteless.

Reply
Noel

Dry milk because it is one less thing to bring and keep in a cooler when you’re camping. You can use regular milk. Just swap out the 3/4 cup of water and dry milk powder for 3/4 cup milk.

Reply
Mindy

I made this for our annual cub scout cook off with my Lions. We took 3rd place out of 35 teams. It was delish!!! We will be making it again during our camp out this weekend!!

Reply
Lori

Would this fit in a 10in 5 quart Dutch oven? Also, what kind of dry milk do you get? I could only find nonfat. Looks amazing, going to make it this weekend.

Reply
Aileen Bluhm

This cake was pretty good but if I make it again, I would definitely add salt to the cake batter. It was a little tasteless.

Reply

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