Be a backcountry gourmet!
Written: Apr 04 '00 (Updated Apr 18 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The only way to dine in the wilderness!
Cons: May not work well with stoves that have poor temperature control
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| xtal's Full Review: Outback Oven |
I’ve been using my "Outback Oven 10" for about five years now and I still love it. If you’ve ever tried any of the freeze-dried backpacking foods out there, you know that they leave much to be desired. The Outback Oven provides the convenience of lightweight, prepackaged meals, and the food actually tastes good!
The Outback Oven is basically a 10-inch (they come in other sizes) Teflon-coated frying pan with a lid. The lid has a thermometer on top that tells you how things are going inside. “Bake” is good, “Burn” is bad. It’s pretty simple. (So far I’ve had very few disasters. Just watch the “Burn” zone very carefully!) A soft, foldable fiberglass dome (material similar to an oven mitt) keeps the heat in, with a hole in the top that allows you to see the thermometer.
The mixes aren’t freeze dried, they’re just prepackaged baking mixes. You don’t really have to buy their mixes at all. Just experiment at home with store-bought or homemade mixes for bread, coffeecake, brownies, cookies, etc. But the Backpacker’s Pantry mixes made for the oven are always good and don’t require much creativity or experimentation. I’ve tried a couple of the pizzas (if you’re a cheese lover, take extra cheese to melt on top), the blueberry scones, the brownies (feeds many hungry campers!), the coffee cake, the focaccia (also good for pizza), and the banana bread (they also have lasagnas, pot pies, and cookies.) All very good. There’s nothing like fresh-baked pizza by the fire after a 10-mile hike!
You can buy several useful accessories made for the Oven. I recommend getting the cutting board, which fits neatly inside the oven. The diffuser plate, the reflector shield, and the heat dome (all included with the Oven) also fit inside. Even though it all packs so well inside, the shape of the oven makes it a little bulky in your pack, but it’s pretty light (10 oz) and definitely worth it at the end of the day!
Warning: I recommend using the Outback Oven with a Gaz stove, or any stove that has good temperature control. Stoves that you can only set to “off” or “high” may not work well with the Oven.
You can buy the Outback Oven, mixes, and accessories through the following Web sites:
(Price currently ranges between $45 and $55.)
www.backpackerspantry.com
www.campmor.com (probably one of the cheapest suppliers)
www.rei.com
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
xtal
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Location: Redmond, WA
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 7 members
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