Camp Dutch Oven Focaccia
No-knead dough mixed in the pot, risen while you set up camp, baked over coals.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 3.1 oz
- cal / oz
- 126
- protein
- 9 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 400 ml cold
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose or bread flour | 2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Whole wheat flour | 1 1/2 cups | all whole wheat bakes dense and dry |
| Active dry yeast | 1 tsp | |
| Kosher salt | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Water | 400 ml | lukewarm, not hot |
| Olive oil | 5 tbsp | carried in a leakproof bottle |
| Dried rosemary | 1 tbsp | crumble it between your fingers |
| Coarse sea salt | 1/2 tsp | for the top only |
Method
- Dump the flour, yeast, and kosher salt bag into the dutch oven. Add the water and stir with a spoon until no dry flour is left. It will be sticky and shaggy. That is correct, and there is no kneading.
- Lid on. Leave it somewhere warm for two hours, longer if it is cold out. In the shade at 50 degrees it can take four.
- Pour 2 tbsp of oil over the dough and push it flat to the edges of the pot with oiled fingers. Poke dimples all over the surface. Drizzle 2 more tbsp of oil into the dimples and scatter the rosemary and coarse salt.
- Rest it another 20 minutes while you burn a fire down to coals.
- Set the pot on a bed of coals and shovel more coals onto the lid, roughly twice as many on top as underneath. Bake 25 minutes.
- Check at 20. The top should be browned and the bread should slide when you shake the pot. Turn the pot a quarter turn every 8 minutes if your coals run hot on one side.
This is a bakery recipe dragged outdoors, and the only real change is where the heat comes from. The dough is no-knead, so it needs a bowl, a spoon, and time — all things a camp already has. Mixing it directly in the dutch oven means the pot you rise in is the pot you bake in, and there is nothing to wash but the spoon.
The flour blend matters. Straight whole wheat makes a heavy, dry loaf that does not rise well; cutting it with white flour keeps the crumb open. The oil is not a garnish. Half goes under the dough so the bottom fries instead of sticking, and half pools in the dimples and soaks down through the top. Coals on the lid are what brown it — heat only from below gives you a pale slab with a burnt bottom.
Packing
Combine both flours, the yeast, and the kosher salt in one gallon bag at home. Rosemary and coarse sea salt go in a small bag taped to it. Oil rides in a bottle with a taped cap.
Variations
- Halve the recipe in a 10-inch skillet with a foil lid if that is what you brought.
- Press olives or sun-dried tomatoes into the dimples before the second rest.
- Swap the rosemary for dried oregano and garlic powder.
https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/whole-wheat-no-knead-focaccia-with-rosemary-and-sea-salt