16 August 2007 - camping (in the rain) on Exmoor, we went out for a circular walk starting at Withypool and walking a couple of miles upstream along the River Exe to Landacre Bridge (supposedly the oldest arched stone bridge on Exmoor) and back again.

On this walk we found: blackberries, raspberries, bilberries and strawberries - the unusually wet and cool weather this summer seems to have stretched the seasons for these fruits so that they overlap - normally, raspberries and wild strawberries would be well finished by now.

So that would be 'Fruits of the Forest', I guess - except that we found them all on moorland and in hedgerows, rather than woodland.

We didn't find anything in great abundance though - perhaps six ounces of fruit in total, but enough for camping cake!

Making camping cake

I didn't have any scales or measuring cups, so everything is very much judged by eye - usually (but not always) this works tolerably well.

So I start off by mashing together some butter and sugar in a bowl, then beating in a couple of eggs and mixing in enough flour (plus about a teaspoon of baking powder) to make a stiff batter

Meanwhile, a cast iron pan was warming on the hob, while I folded the fruit carefully into the cake mix.

When the pan was hot, I brushed it lightly with oil, then added the cake mix and turned down the heat. When the bottom of the cake had cooked a little and the rest had started to rise, I put the pan under the grill to brown the top, then put a lid on it and put it back over a low flame.

The wind kept blowing out the flame on the low setting, so I had to fudge it by repeatedly heating up over a high flame for a few minutes, then turning off for a while - it's the thick cast iron pan that provides a thermal buffer that makes an approximation of baking possible - in the past, I've just heated up the pan really hot, then wrapped the whole lot in foil, then towels, then a sleeping bag and let the residual heat do the baking.

Anyway, after about half an hour or so, it was fully cooked, so I turned everything off and left it to cool for another hour.

The finished cake was quite a good result this time - could have done with a bit more sugar perhaps, and would have been nicer with custard (mental note to pack some next time).