The hot humid weather has arrived. It's 28°C right now. Yesterday it was 30! I still have a bunch of baking that I'd like to do. But I don't want to heat up the house by keeping turning the oven on. So I decided to look into the possibility of doing my baking on the barbecue. It's a little harder to precisely control the temperature, sure. No thermostat or anything, so you've gotta keep an eye on the thermometer and adjust the flame manually, but it seemed like it should be possible.

I did a bit of rummaging around online and it looks like the general consensus is to use indirect heat and open the lid as little as possible. I found one source that recommended trying to get the grill ~25°F hotter than you'd normally bake it in the oven since you'd be losing a lot of heat from opening the lid and it wouldn't be as easy to recoup the losses on the barbecue. I found another source that recommended dramatically reducing the baking time since the barbecue creates more bottom heat and more convection than a standard oven. I think a lot of it is going to have to do with your specific barbecue, your technique/accuracy, and the recipe you're trying to make. My quick bread took ~10 minutes longer than specified for the oven recipe, but I've never actually tried cooking it in the oven to see how closely the bake time aligns with the recipe. In addition, I didn't exactly have a stable temperature for this bake. I think it probably averaged out to about the right spot -- assuming my grill thermometer is at all accurate, which it might not be -- but it started out quite hot and then dropped a bit too cool toward the middle of the bake before inching back up to somewhere in and around 350°F for the rest of the bake. The bread came out alright though, so I'm not complaining!

I think, with a little more practice, I could probably get the flame settings dialed in to get a more steady temperature and a consistent bake. And I'm certainly happy with this as a first attempt! It's baked through and tasty. Not burnt on the outside, not raw on the inside. To look at it, you wouldn't know it wasn't baked in a standard oven. I think this barbecue baking thing has promise!

Ranch Quick Bread

Slightly adapted from The Kitchn

Ingredients

• 3 c. all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 2 large eggs
• 1 c. buttermilk
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 c. chopped fresh dill
• 1/4 c. chopped fresh chives
• 1 c. cottage cheese

Directions

1. Grease and flour a 23x13cm (9x5") loaf pan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
3. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, butter, dill, and chives.
4. Stir cottage cheese into egg mixture.
5. Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir to combine.
6. Dump batter (which will be quite stiff) into prepared pan. Press into corners and smooth the top.
7. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 40-60 minutes. For barbecue baking, set up your grill for indirect heat and adjust the flames/coals to achieve the desired temperature. Setting the left and right flames to "low" and turning the middle off worked well for me.
8. Let cool in pan for ~15 minutes.
9. Run a knife or spatula around the edge of the pan and turn the loaf out onto a wire rack to cool.

Last year we made some sweet cinnamon roasted pumpkin seeds after turning the rest of the pumpkin into delicious pie. This year we hit up the same set of recipes and tried out the ranch recipe for a savoury twist. And, once again, I was very pleased with the results. Although I think I'd cut back on the salt a little next time. Other than that, they were great though.

Ranch Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Slightly adapted from Wholefully

Ingredients

• 1 c. raw pumpkin seeds
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. fresh parsley, minced
• 1/2-1 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground (depending on how salty you like things)
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. dill¹
• 1/4 tsp. mustard powder
• 1/4 tsp. celery seed, ground
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, ground

Directions

1. Rinse and dry your pumpkin seeds.
2. Add olive oil and toss to coat.
3. Combine remaining ingredients and mix well.
4. Sprinkle ranch mixture over oiled pumpkin seeds and toss to coat.
5. Spread seeds onto baking sheet and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes.

I think it might be interesting to try adding just a touch of buttermilk powder to the mix as well. I'd probably start with 1/4 tsp. or so just to see how it goes.

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¹ I was all out of dill, so I ended up grinding up 1/2 tsp. of dill seeds and using that instead. The flavour isn't quite the same, but it was close enough for this application. ^Back