How to bake cake and pastries without oven?

When I was young in Asia, my mom would bake a cake on a coal stove in a cast iron pot. Hot coals were then added on top of the lid as a secondary heat source.

No, no standard recipe for baking will work on a gas stove.

There are a few forgiving types of baked good (like some quickbreads) for which you could find special-tailored recipes which can work on a stove. The recipes are fussy, the result is not as good as oven baked, and they are exceptions. User2052413's answer is an example for one of these recipes. Almost all of the things you could bake in an oven (such as pastries) cannot be made this way at all.

If you want to bake cakes, you need an oven of some type, the standard domestic electric oven being the easiest solution. There is no way around it.

I am disappointed in some of the answers given to you. Without an oven, the best place to get cooking cakes, biscuits, bread, etc. is on an internet camping site. Try Pininterest or any camping blog, or camping cookbook. You will find out you can cook almost everything without an oven. Some recipes will need a little modification. But cast iron skillet, 10" pan and dutch oven with lid, should enable you to make almost anything you want.

Peggy

There is a pan like thing from the Czech republic called a remoska that has a heating element in the lid, and apparently is surprisingly good for things like pies.

There is also the option of a Dutch oven which could go on your hob, or for some specific purposes a pie iron, which can be used over a fire, but also probably on your stove.

I found this question/answers after making pastry for a quiche and then finding that the oven didn't work. Subsequently I had reasonable success with two deep baking trays inverted one over the other on the hob, with some metal skewers under the enclosed muffin tray to raise it slightly and prevent burnt base. I also put a large lidded pan of just boiled water on top to stabilise the temperature. The remoska would be much more energy efficient.

I don't have the use of an oven at the moment either. I can't just go buy a new oven or bench baking thing etc. I attempted to pull a toaster apart and put it back together again in an old fish smoker so that I had like a top & bottom element, or just a top one. It worked really well... once... I managed to get my flaky pastry to rise and turn golden brown, and looked fantastic. Well, until blackish smoke started to pour out of it and a horrid burnt aluminum smell filled the air. But keep thinking or use heaps of cigarette lighters.

Use a large Baking tray on top of the gas burner hobs, place what every you want to cook on the backing tray then cover with aluminium foil, making sure the whole tray is covered and tuck the foil around the edges. Not too tight though, you need to ensure that the foil can rise. Ive used this method with mulitple vegetables,chicken, fish and recently, puff pastry mini pizettes :)

I have done so in a gas grill. Lid down. You need to be able to hold even heat. put on top rack in a double baking pan. For a few simple things. But be cheaper to use a oven & better.