Elaborate, But Delicious Sweet Treats To Make On Your Next Camping Trip

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Camping is all about simplicity, isn't it? You're meant to roll up to an absolutely breathtaking place to camp, kick back, and forget about the world for a little while. So, it stands to reason the food you bring along should be simple too, shouldn't it? Not always the case. While not many of us are going to go about making baked Alaska or creme brûlée at our campsite, there are still some more intricate meals that make the whole experience so much better. This is especially true when it comes to sweets.

Whenever someone thinks of a sweet camping treat, s'mores immediately pop into their heads. While they are absolutely delicious, just cooking s'mores and hot dogs can get a little boring. With some effort, you can absolutely create elaborate, deliciously sweet treats for your next camping trip.

To provide you with inspiration, we've assembled a list of 12 ideas, but this is just a start. Treats range from simple breakfast cinnamon rolls to more complicated fare like pineapple upside down cake and fruit cobbler. Regardless of which ones you pick for your next outing, you can rest assured that all of the items on this list are going to satisfy even the most demanding sweet tooth.

Cinnamon rolls are one of those classic breakfast treats that make even the most mundane of mornings feel special. Whether you're getting them out of a can or have made them from scratch in advance, there is no denying the sweet, slightly spicy, gooey goodness that comes from that first bite. Now imagine it made over glowing 

Thankfully, making them over the campfire is not difficult. If you have a cast iron skillet, which is one of the best tools to make grilling camping meals a breeze, assemble your pre-made rolls in the pan, set over coals to bake, turning them every few minutes to make sure they're cooked evenly on all sides. You can also have them prepped in an aluminum baking dish if you don't feel like dirtying your pan. Baking should only take about 10 to 20 minutes.

Another way to get your cinnamon rolls is to skewer them and toast them for 15 minutes over a low fire, turning continuously until golden brown on all sides and cooked through. This type of camp-cooking method is a favorite for making hot dogs, sausages, and marshmallows, as it allows a lot of control and offers a good bit of nostalgia. Once the rolls are ready, sit back and enjoy your peaceful morning.

You could always make some cookies ahead of time, put them in a plastic bag, and just have them ready to go whenever you fancy a bit of sweetness. But where is the fun in that? Wouldn't it be so much better to bake an absolutely enormous cookie in a cast iron skillet directly over the fire? Sure, it might not be entirely convenient, but the results will speak for themselves.

Cast iron skillet cookies are a camping classic. Essentially, they are one big cookie of your choosing. Salted caramel, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin, double chocolate, peanut butter, and cookies-and-cream all work as skillet cookies. However, the ultimate classic is the never-fail chocolate chip skillet cookie. The melty chocolate adds just the right amount of sweet acidity to make this dessert pair perfectly with scoops of ice cream and a cool evening.

Making one, however, requires a bit of patience. You need to preheat and oil your skillet before the cookie dough goes in. Then monitor it carefully over coals (not flames) to make sure the bottom isn't burning. It should take 20 to 25 minutes to cook fully, but it could take longer depending on how well your pan regulates heat. Just remember that your patience will be rewarded with what could very likely be your new favorite dessert.

Fruit is a highly portable and perfectly sweet treat in its own right. If you let yourself forget for a moment that it is good for you, fruit can be a wonderfully indulgent ingredient in your camp treat repertoire. This is especially true when it comes to grilled peaches.

Peaches make for excellent grilling because they hold their shape while the fire from the grill caramelizes and enhances the natural sugars within, bringing forth a much deeper flavor. You will need a grill grate or grilling basket, like the basket from Blazin' Grill in order to cook peaches over a campfire. If you've got your own portable grill, or your site comes with a charcoal grill, these might be better for you to use, rather than a campfire. And you can always pan fry them in cast iron if that's your only option. Grilling won't take any longer than 5 minutes.

Now, grilled peaches can be as simple as throwing some halved, pitted peaches directly onto the grill. They can also be more elaborate. You can soak your peaches for an hour in a wine or liquor-based marinade to add a boozy kick after grilling. You can also get elaborate with the toppings by caramelizing some nuts or whipping up a sweet mascarpone that gets scooped on like ice cream. However, if you like to keep things simple, a drizzle of honey or reduced balsamic vinegar and a scoop of vanilla ice cream work wonderfully.

A dutch oven is a must-have camping tool. Prized for its versatility in making countless different meals, a cast iron dutch oven is indispensable if you are someone who really wants to up their game in the camp cooking department. They are also excellent for keeping things warm, making them ideal for cozy fall camping meals.

On the sweet treat front, a dutch oven's excellent insulating power makes it perfect for a number of baked desserts. For our money, however, fruit cobblers are by far one of the best directions you can take. Any type of fruit will work (in-season is ideal), but some of the best for cobblers include stone fruits like peaches, plums, and cherries, and various berries like blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. For the crust, you can use a simple, store bought mix, or make your own.

Once all of your ingredients are layered inside the dutch oven, place it atop 15 hot coals, cover oven, and add 30 hot coals on top or enough to cover the lid. This will provide enough heat to mimic a standard oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Rotate the oven every so often and check in after 20 minutes of baking. The cobbler filling should be bubbling, and the crust good and crispy. Serve as is, or with your favorite ice cream.

This is another dessert that benefits from the heating properties of the dutch oven. Like a cobbler in many ways, apple crisp differs mainly in its crust. The streusel topping is combination of butter, oats, cinnamon, flour, and sugar, the crisp's crust is meant to fall apart and fuse with the apple filling, creating a mixture that is at once crunchy and soft, sweet and mildly tart. It's an excellent dessert to have any time of year, but is especially good in the fall during apple harvest, when you can get good baking varieties like cortland, honeycrisp, and granny smith.

You can make the components well in advance and keep them in your cooler if you prefer compartmentalizing your meals. Otherwise, making the crisp topping and apple filling is easy to do at the campsite. If you plan on using your dutch oven, utilize a cooking method similar to that of the cobbler we just mentioned. This will take between 20 and 30 minutes to bake to perfection.

Another cooking method you can use here are individual foil packets. Simply assemble smaller portions on a measured sheet of aluminum foil, then fold the sheet over to create a sealed packet. You can place these directly on the grill grate over the campfire, or your portable grill if you have one. Again, cooking should take about 20 minutes.

You want to know what's fun? Making popcorn over a campfire. This is yet another brilliant use for the dutch oven or a deep sided cast iron skillet. Since popcorn kernels can expand up to 40 times their original size, you don't need that much to get a good snack out of it. A quarter cup of un-popped kernels will yield about 2 quarts of fresh popcorn. This is more than enough for a few people sitting around the campfire. Measure out your oil and throw in a few test kernels. After they pop, remove them and add the rest of the popcorn.

Now, to really elevate this to a sublimely sweet treat, transform that regular popcorn into no-bake caramel corn. This is an amazing snack to have on hand, one that is going to be a real crowd pleaser. Of course, you could make as much of this as you wanted to beforehand. But popping popcorn over a campfire is a special experience.

The gooey caramel is easy to make too. Heat up some brown sugar, butter, salt, and corn or maple syrup in a pan and let it boil for about 5 minutes. Stir in some baking soda and cover the popcorn in it. Once it's all cooled, you'll have a sweet-and-salty snack that you'll more than likely eat through in one sitting.

Here is a fun and different way to use up any leftover waffle or sugar cones you have from your summertime exploits. Instead of filling them with ice cream — which, let's face it, when you're camping, can be a bit of a pain to store and keep cold — fill your cones with other sweets instead. These are called dessert cones, and you can get really creative with how you use them.

There are any number of different fillings you can add to your dessert cones. Typically, the solid base is marshmallows, to which you can then add your favorite candies like chocolate chips or Reese's pieces, nuts, nougat, caramels, peanut butter, Nutella, and even fruit. Feel free to get creative with your dessert cone. Create one that is a mashup of your favorite dessert toppings and see where it takes you.

Once you've filled your cone, wrap it in aluminum foil and set it to bake on the coals for a couple of minutes until they are heated through. The result should be a wonderfully warm and gooey cone that's a bit like a s'more, only more fun to eat and make. This is a particularly fun dessert idea for kids.

Rice crispy treats are a sweet, sticky treat that many people never tire of eating. A simple combination of the eponymous cereal and melted marshmallows, rice crispy treats can be made easily in a dutch oven over low heat by the campfire or portable grill. However, this can create a really sticky mess that might be a pain to clean up later. So, we actually suggest a different solution.

While we've encouraged you to make as many of these treats directly at your campsite, rice crispy treats are actually going to be better when made in advance. Store them in long trays, unrefrigerated, for a few days. You want the treats nice and firm before you warm them up over the campfire.

At camp, cut the rice crispy treats into rectangles, rather than squares, and stick them on the end of a skewer. Toast them like you would a marshmallow, turning continuously, so that the outside edges become golden and gooey, while the middle heats up nice and warm. Hold them over the campfire a bit longer if you like a good char.

What is more indicative of the summer camping season than strawberry shortcake? Fresh strawberries, shortcake or sweet biscuits, whipped cream: Send us to dessert heaven right now. While this dessert is easy enough to assemble on its own, why not go the extra mile and add a fun twist: Why not put it on a stick?

The process is really quite simple. Assemble your ingredients: strawberries, pound cake or shortcake, and marshmallows. (You can't really skewer and grill whipped cream.) Place them all one after the other on a long wooden skewer and then warm them up over the campfire or directly on the grill. The strawberries, like the peaches mentioned above, will caramelize and intensify in sweetness.

The cake becomes just a little bit crispy, and the marshmallows gooey and warm. When you're finished roasting them over the fire, slide them off the skewer into a bowl and enjoy your work. You can also skewer just the strawberries and cake and enjoy them with some whipped cream on the side if you are not a big fan of marshmallows. 

Here's a foodie riddle for you: what can you make with some sliced pineapples, vanilla cake, cherries, and sugar? Pineapple upside down cake, of course. This is a perennial favorite that has a vintage flare to it. Popularized in the 1920s, pineapple upside down cake has gone through various iterations to get to its current form. And, if it is a favorite of yours, you should know how to make one when you go camping.

We recommend using store-bought ingredients here for ease of assembly. Gather together some sliced pineapple, individual vanilla shortcakes, maraschino cherries, and some brown sugar. Assemble as follows in a foil packet: brown sugar, pineapple, cherry, cake. Seal the foil packet and bake pineapple side down for 10 to 15 minutes. The sugar will create a caramelized top, so be sure to flip them pineapple side up for serving.

You can also make pineapple sandwich cakes using leftover donuts. Slice the donut in half, add some sugar and pineapple to one slice. Sandwich the donut back together, wrap in foil, and bake on the fire for 20 minutes. The results will be just as tasty, and may be even easier to eat. 

There's not a whole lot to say about this one. Simply put, you're stuffing a banana full of sweet ingredients to create a warm, campfire version of a banana split. There is a case to be made for calling these desserts banana s'mores, but we will let you be the judge.

The ingredients for this are simple. You have bananas, chocolate chips, and marshmallows. You could swap out the chocolate chips for your favorite chocolate or candy bar for a more personalized result. The trick here is slicing the banana. Take a knife and cut a small notch near the top, then gently pull away the peel on one side. The remaining banana skin will help protect the fruit inside from burning.

Slice down the banana lengthwise and stuff it to the brim with the chocolate and marshmallows. An optional step would be to wrap the banana in parchment paper before wrapping it in foil. The parchment paper will help keep the marshmallow from sticking to the foil while it melts. Bake on hot coals for 4 to 6 minutes, then open up your pack to reveal the new sweet staple you'll be making on all your future camping trips.

Pound cake, as its name suggests, is a thick, buttery cake that has the proportions of a quarter pound each of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs to make a one pound cake. The result is a cake you can do practically anything with. Its density makes it particularly well-suited to grilling or toasting over a campfire, since it won't lose its shape. As such, griddled pound cake sandwiches take up the final sweet treat spot on our list.

These are essentially s'mores but on a totally different level. The method is like making a grilled cheese, except in this case the bread and fillings are sweet instead of savory. In between your two slices of pound cake, you can add marshmallow, peanut butter, Nutella, or any other kind of sweet spread or filling you like. Smear them onto the pound cake, sandwich the slices together, and then griddle them in a pan over a campfire for a few minutes until both sides are golden brown. You can even make these using a pie iron if you have one at your disposal.