A camping oven, one swears by it, the other finds it unnecessary. I myself am a bit in between. I can camp without a camping oven and have done so for years, but since I have one, I am very happy with all those delicious brown pastries, pizza and even oven dishes on the campsite. However, there are a lot of different ways to bake on the campsite. Here is an overview of 11 different types of ovens that are suitable for baking on the campsite.
WHAT DO YOU USE A CAMPING OVEN FOR?
Most campers only use a camping oven to bake pastries in the morning. This saves a walk to the bakery or camping shop and especially if you often do this with a lot of people, also a lot of money.
But the best ovens are also suitable for much more than just baking bread rolls. You can use them to make delicious homemade pizzas, bake a delicious banana cake or make whole oven dishes or lasagna. Your recipe repertoire will immediately become a lot bigger on the campsite. Also very tasty nowadays are the oven snacks such as oven bitterballs or oven croquettes. Tasty to go with a drink.
WHAT TYPES OF OVENS ARE THERE ON THE CAMPSITE?
Roughly speaking, you can divide camping ovens into 3 different types. There are camping gas ovens, which you can either connect to your gas bottle or just put on your camping gas stove. There are also electric hot air ovens for the campsite and finally the ovens that you can use on an open fire like above a campfire.
In addition to the type of ‘fuel’ in the oven, there are also differences in the size of the ovens. This is especially important for electric ovens. These come in sizes: mini, midi and maxi. For most campers the maxi ovens are too big and often use too much energy. The mini ovens are especially suitable if you only want to bake sandwiches, a midi oven is also big enough to bake an oven dish or a pizza.
WHAT SHOULD YOU PAY ATTENTION TO WHEN BUYING A CAMPING OVEN?
The most important thing is to choose an oven that suits your way of camping. If you like to camp off the grid sometimes without electricity then you should choose a gas oven or a Dutch oven. If you want more convenience, space is not a problem and if you camp especially on campsites then an electric oven is the most obvious choice.
HOW MANY WATTS CAN MY CAMPING OVEN USE?
If you choose for an electric oven it is important to choose one with the right wattage. In order to know the right amount of watts you can use on your campsite there is a handy calculation. This calculates the maximum amount of watts you can use on your pitch.
The two things you need to know are:
1. How many Amps is the connection on my pitch? (This can usually be found on the campsite’s website or in the camping guide)
2. The voltage. This is easy because it is actually 230 volts throughout Europe.
The calculation then reads: Ampere x Voltage (230) = Watt. The most common connections and the corresponding maximum number of Watts are indicated below.
4 Amps = 920 Watts
6 Amps = 1,380 Watts
8 Amps = 1,840 Watts
10 Amps = 2,300 Watts
16 Amps = 3680 Watts
Most camping furnaces use between 800 and 1000 Watt. This means that you need at least a 6 ampere connection on your pitch or you need to turn off all other electrical appliances.