How to Bake a Cake on a Gas Grill

Last night, I made a notable discovery: You can “bake” our Stovetop Chocolate Cake on a propane grill. And it comes out perfectly. Like most discoveries, this one was born out of necessity. For reasons that are currently unclear to me, my oven won’t close, which is a problem. I’m sure there is an easy-ish solution, but I haven’t gotten around to finding it yet, mainly because I haven’t haven’t been doing much roasting, braising or baking. But last night I wanted cake—chocolate cake. Rather than attempt to fix the oven problem, I decided to bake a cake on my cheap four-burner grill. (I am not handy, but I am resourceful.)

The great thing about grills is that they are both stovetop and oven in one, but I knew I had to choose my cake carefully. Temperature control is a bit dicey, and there’s no way to adjust the “rack height” on a grill (at least not on my grill). The cake pan would be pretty close to the flames, which could result in an overcooked bottom.

For all of these reasons, our Stovetop Chocolate Cake seemed like the perfect candidate. It’s not truly baked, but steamed, which eliminates the need for exact temperature control. All you have to do is make a ring out of some aluminum foil, set the ring inside a Dutch oven, add some water, and set the filled cake pan on the ring and cover with the lid. The water bath provides some insulation from the direct heat of the flames, so the cake can gently cook in its own little spa. (Disclaimer: Cooking the cake this way has not been tested by the Milk Street Kitchen, so proceed with something akin to caution!)

“Baking” this cake on the grill really wasn’t much different from using the stovetop method. All you have to do is prepare the water bath as described above (and by the recipe), then close the Dutch oven and place it in the center of your gas grill. Turn all of the burners to high, then close the lid and let the water come to a boil. I checked every 5 minutes, and after 15, the water was boiling quite vigorously.

Once boiling, you need to reduce the temp to keep the water at a simmer. If you have a four-burner grill, turn the two side burners off and lower the middle two (the two under the Dutch oven) as low as they will go. Close the grill again and walk away for about 20 minutes, then open everything up and give the cake a timid poke. It should be just firm to the touch. If it’s not quite there, close it up again for another 3 minutes. 

Bring the cake inside and cool according to the recipe.

The texture of this confection is pretty phenomenal. It’s light and moist, but those two words don’t paint the full picture. The chocolate flavor is pronounced, without the heaviness you usually get with a typical chocolate-forward cake. It’s bouncy, yet pudding-like. It melts in the mouth. Resist the urge to gild the lily; this cake is best with a dusting of powdered sugar or, maybe, a little softly whipped cream. (If you want to get fancy with the whipped cream, I would go with our Brown Sugar Whipped Cream, to complement the brown sugar and espresso in the cake; the Tangy Whipped Cream is another good option.)

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.