Camping should be about getting in touch with nature (other than the dirt and bugs, though, if I’m around), and I don’t like that so many of the popular camping meals are the opposite of healthy, but now and again, it is nice to jazz things up a bit and have a little fun for the kids (young and old) and be a bit naughty and have something new and fun. These campfire crescent dogs is our fun meal.
Usually, Tristan can’t have things like croissants as he’s allergic to dairy products so anything with milk (including butter) is out. This can be a bit of a drag for him, I know. But I have discovered that there is a brand of canned crescent roll that doesn’t contain dairy at all, so a couple of times a year I’ll buy a can for a treat.
The shop I needed for the ingredients was luckily in a town not too far from the Rossguill Peninsula where we were camping, which worked out well for us. But if you don’t have a dairy allergy, you’ll certainly be able to find such a product in most supermarkets, especially if you’re in North America.
We had been having lots of long days out exploring the West Coast of Co. Donegal, and knowing that we were going to come back to the campsite for these crescent dogs kept the kids going.
Ingredients:
- Frankfurters or weiners
- A tin of crescent rolls
- Condiments if you so desire
- Campfire sticks and/or a cast iron frying pan
- A chopping board and knife
These dogs are really easy and quick to make! Here’s how:
Pop open your tin of crescent rolls and gently slice them along their perforations.
You may not have to do this step, but I like my franks on the well-done side, so I cooked my frank first.
Roll up a frankfurter in each piece of dough, starting with the long end and rolling towards the small corner. Pinch gently at the corner to hold things together. If you have pre-cooked your franks, then be careful as they’ll be hot.
Slide your crescent dog onto a campfire stick and carefully hold it over the fire or campstove, being careful that it doesn’t fall off.
Watch the pastry puff up and cook around the frank before your very eyes! Turn the frank to ensure it’s baked on all sides.
Our weather wasn’t totally agreeable and it had started to rain a little by this point, and there wasn’t enough ‘fire’ to go around for all our crescent dogs to be cooked at the same time, so what we did was we had a cast iron pan on the camp stove and when a crescent dog was just about done, we transferred it to the pan and covered it with a lid to protect it from the rain. They continued to bake slightly and then when all the crescent dogs were done, we were all able to sit down and eat them together.
After all, camping is also about spending time with each other!
Now our children remember our first camping trip whenever they have a crescent roll!
I must mention here, just because…the bakeries here have stopped making crescent rolls in the traditional crescent shape as it takes up more room on the baking sheets, and they are harder to slice and add butter and jam to when they’re in a crescent shape. So now they make ‘crescent’ rolls in a straight shape.
This actually made the morning news last year and my children were outraged! “But it’s called a crescent roll, not a bar roll”, they said!
As you can imagine, when we do made crescent rolls, I am under strict instructions and observation to make them into a crescent shape.
The only time they are acceptable not curled up is when they are wrapped around a frankfurter!
Bon appetite!
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