camp recipes

Although our guides will be doing all the cooking during our Nahanni trip, we're each responsible for bringing one appetizer and one dessert for 12 people. HELP! I need ideas. The ingredients have to be non-perishable and easy to carry (i.e. doesn't matter if they get squished into a knapsack). Short cooking time is good (I prefer NO cooking time, of course, but that's just me :)). There will be a reflector oven available.

I found the following recipe for BLACK FOREST COBBLER on a camp recipes website. Recipe is by Jay Bingham:

1 Can Cherry pie filling
1 box Fudge Cake mix
1/2 Can water
3-4 Tbsp Butter/Margerine


Dump the pie filling in the oven, pour half a can of water in and mix. Sprinkle Cake mix over fruit, dot with butter.

Cook in Dutch Oven at about 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes, turn oven about every ten minutes. When done this looks like it is burned, so a little extra care must be taken to not actually burn it. When I server this up the first few folks asked if it was burned, then when they found out it wasn't it was gone in a flash.

I'm going to try out this recipe tonight, though I'm going to leave out the butter/margarine since I can't count on having any available. Anyway, if you have any ideas, please let me know! Any suggestions appreciated.

p.s. Hm. Is a reflector oven same as a Dutch Oven? HELP!!!

p.p.s. Obviously it isn't. I followed the instructions above, but when the time was up, the ingredients looked exactly the same (i.e. cake powder poured over goopy cherries). Yuk. Desperate, I tried mixing it all together and put it back in the oven. An hour later, it came out looking like an underdone cake. Some parts were enough like chocolate cake to eat (which I did, of course...didn't want to see good chocolate go to waste) but the center was goopy with cherries and never got properly baked. BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD, sigh.