Camp Sourdough Skillet Bread
A starter fed at home, flour and salt carried dry, one flat loaf baked in a covered pan over coals.
- calories
- 330
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 94
- protein
- 11 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 350 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
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Active sourdough starter | 1 cup | fed 2-3 hours before you leave, carried in a screw-top jar with the lid cracked |
|---|---|---|
| Whole wheat flour | 4 cups | white flour works and is more forgiving |
| Salt | 1 tbsp | |
| Water | 1 1/2 cups | filtered or treated |
| Oil | 1 tbsp | for the pan |
Method
- In the pot, stir the starter, the water, and about 3 cups of the flour together with a spoon until no dry pockets remain.
- Add the salt and the rest of the flour a half cup at a time. When the spoon stops working, use your hands. The dough should stay tacky, not stiff.
- Cover the pot and leave it somewhere warm. It rises slowly in cold air, so expect 4 to 8 hours. Poke it: if the dent springs back partway, it is ready.
- Oil a dutch oven or a deep skillet with a lid. Press the dough in flat, no thicker than two inches, and let it sit while the fire burns down.
- Bake over a bed of coals with a shovelful more coals on the lid. Roughly 35 to 45 minutes. Rotate the pot a quarter turn every ten minutes so one side does not scorch.
- It is done when the top sounds hollow under a knuckle and the edges pull from the pan. Tip it out and let it cool before cutting or it tears.
This is a car-camping or basecamp loaf, not a trail one. The dough is a long-fermented, no-knead type: hydration does the work that kneading would, and the wild yeast takes hours to do it. Time is the constraint, not effort, which is why it fits a day you are staying put.
The starter is the fragile piece. It needs to be at peak when you mix, meaning fed two or three hours earlier and domed on top, so feeding it before you leave the house is the whole plan. Everything else on the list is flour, salt, and water and rides in a bag indefinitely. Baking in a covered pot with coals on the lid is what replaces an oven: heat from both sides, or you get a raw middle under a burnt bottom.
Packing
Flour and salt get premixed into one bag at home; that removes all measuring in camp. The starter is the only thing with a clock on it, so feed it a few hours before you drive out and keep the jar upright and vented.
Variations
- A cold night stalls the rise. Set the covered pot near the fire ring, not in it, or zip it into a sleeping bag.
- Half the dough can go straight into an oiled pan as flatbread and cook in eight minutes if you do not want to wait on a full rise.
- Rolled oats swapped for a half cup of the flour make a denser loaf that keeps two days longer.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/nourishing-recipe-simple-sourdough-bread-recipe