Have you ever used a dutch oven? Over a camp fire these pot-pan combos can be great for making a pot of beans, soup or chili, but did you know you can also bake in them?
This spring my husband and I attended a dutch oven cooking class where we learning to make everything from a rolled pork loin to pineapple upside down cake and yeast rolls. It was a lot of fun, very educational and tasty! We had a good sized class and everyone made a dish or two, so in the end, we had a huge feast.
Dutch Ovens Are Great for Controlled Cooking
A dutch oven (Amazon) is very heavy cast iron and if used right, can provide a very regulated heat. This makes it the perfect setup for baking outdoors. It may surprise you, but a dutch oven is not to be used over an open fire, and actually requires very little fuel! Our class used charcoal because it’s the easiest to calculate and regulate, but wood works too! This chart is very helpful in figuring out how many charcoal biscuits are needed to achieve the desired temperature for your oven size! And yes, you can double-stack dutch ovens!
Getting Started Cooking in a Dutch Oven
Once you know how big your Dutch Oven (Amazon) is, and how many charcoal biscuits you need to maintain the correct temperature for your recipe, get some charcoal ready. Make sure to ready at least twice as many as your pan says to use, cause you’ll end up needing to replace some partway through the cooking process as they cool down or burn out. Just like you would if you were grilling, light the charcoal and wait for the biscuits to get nice and gray. They will be oh-so-hot. Us very long-handled tongs to place them under and on top of your dutch oven. You will want to do all this before putting your batter in the pan if your recipes calls for preheating the oven. If no preheat is necessary, load the pan up with food first, then add the charcoal.
Note: For yeast breads, you can let your dough do its last rise right in the pan. Put the loaves or rolls in the cool dutch oven, then load up with the charcoal. The dough will rise as the oven warms up!
Keep an Eye on Your Temperature!
Be sure to set your timer for about 10 minutes. When it dings, use a heavy-duty potholder to pick up the whole oven by the handle and give it a quarter turn, to the right. Next do the same with the lid, but turn it to the left. This helps to shift the heat so you don’t have some parts getting over cooked while others remain undone. Do this every 10-15 minutes during your cook time. Replace coals that have burnt to ash (dump ash off the lid if possible… ash insulates, and will keep the heat of the coals from warming the oven) or turned cold.
Wind can really affect your temperature. If it’s breezy outdoors, try to set up a wind block behind your cooking area. Some people use these heavy iron cooking tables, but most people cook right down on the ground, so you may want to stretch a tarp between two sticks, or set a large cooler behind your cooking area to keep the wind from blowing all your heat away. Remember, this isn’t an open flame. Your heat is concentrated right on the oven so you won’t be keeping warm by this ‘fire’ or melting things that are nearby. Do that, er, the keeping warm part anyway, over where you’re getting the charcoal or wood ready.
When Your Food is Ready…
Feast!
I can’t wait to hear what kinds of things you make in your dutch oven!
Hi! I’m excited to see you’ve been introduced to Dutch oven cooking. I’ve been blogging about my Dutch oven adventures for quite a few years. There are lots of ways to do it, and each chef has their own strategies and approaches.
When I do breads or rolls, I’ll preheat the lid with a lot of coals, while the bread does the proofing rise in the cool dutch oven. When it’s risen, I’ll put on the bottom coals and put the hot lid on top. The sudden blast of heat makes the dough spring up and poof. Yum!
Mark, it seems we did that too for our rolls!
I so enjoyed our class and I can’t wait to do it again.
I bought the hubs a dutch oven for Christmas last year and we never got to test it out while camping but this might be the perfect fall activity for us in our yard. And to test bread recipes! Thanks Erica!
Oh fun!! I don’t own one like we used at the class. Wish I did! We’d use it a lot when camping. :-)
I got two Dutch ovens,want learn to cook in them.
I just got one, that was found in a garb a ge pile! The lid has like a notch lock and the underside of the lid has slight ridges in a ring pattern I assume for self based ty ing meat.
Can you also use a cast iron DO with a normal lid outside with charcoal? Or can you only use this one in the home in your normal oven?
The lid with the lip around the edge is there to hold the coals on. The rounded over lid used indoors will not hole the coals reliably and they may end up in your food when checking inside. If you are looking to buy only one the outdoor one can be used inside in an oven or on a gas range as well as outside.
Petra,
Although it is possible to use a standard lid with charcoal on top you won’t want to. The lid with a lip around the top keeps the charcoal from falling off into your pot when you lift the lid. If you use a standard lid you’ll have to preform a balancing act with the briquettes and you’ll also want to clear the lid of ash every time you open it.
One additional point, you should use a lid lifter instead of pot holders to remove the lid. The lid lifter controls the top very well while keeping your hands away from the fire. I hope this helps or at least answers your question.
Have fun cooking the Dutch Oven way.
Dana
I have six dutch ovens of various sizes one easy way for cooking with them is to use a chicken feed pan this holds your coals and also comes up halfway up over the Dutch oven to form a Windbreak this works very well
Hi! I received a cast iron dutch oven for camping. I am new to all thinks cast iron and new to cooking on the campfire. Any tips you can give me for cooking with wood? We normally do not bring charcoal with us. I have tried to use it a couple times first time was a disaster when I made chili and my husband thought you should put the DO right in the burning fire….burnt to a crisp lol. Second we made bbq pork chops which turned out pretty well lastly we made corned beef which was just ok. I am a pretty decent cook in traditional methods just kind of floundering around with this DO/campfire cooking thing.
Flip the lid upside down on your Dutch oven and it should work just fine