Dutch Oven Camp Bread
Four ingredients, one pot, and a long wait that happens while you sleep.
- calories
- 250
- weight
- 3 oz
- cal / oz
- 83
- protein
- 8 g
- serves
- 7, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 50 min
- total time
- 70 min
- water
- 315 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
- Lunch
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Bread flour | 3 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Salt | 1 1/4 tsp | |
| Instant yeast | 1/4 tsp | active dry works too |
| Cool water | 1 1/3 cups | about 315 ml |
| Cornmeal or extra flour | 2 tbsp | for dusting |
Method
- The morning before you want bread, dump the flour, salt, and yeast in a pot or a gallon freezer bag. Add the water and stir or squeeze about 30 seconds, until it is a shaggy, sticky mess. If it is not tacky on your fingers, add another tablespoon or two of water.
- Cover it and leave it somewhere out of the sun. It needs 12 to 18 hours. In cold weather put it in the car or your sleeping bag; in heat check it at 12.
- It is ready when the top is pocked with bubbles and it has more than doubled.
- Flour your hands and a bandana or a sheet of parchment. Scrape the dough out, fold it over on itself a few times into a rough ball, and set it seam-down on the floured cloth. Dust the top with cornmeal and let it sit an hour or two while you build the fire.
- Burn the fire down to coals. Put the empty Dutch oven in the coals with the lid on for 20 minutes to heat it through.
- Lift the hot lid, drop the dough in seam-up, and cover. Set 8 to 10 coals under the oven and 15 to 18 on the lid.
- Bake 30 minutes covered, then pull the lid and go another 15 to 20 until the crust is dark brown and it sounds hollow when you knock on it.
- Turn it out and let it cool on a plate or rock. Cutting hot bread makes it gummy.
This is the standard no-knead loaf, moved outdoors. The long, cold, wet rise does the work that kneading normally does: with 12 to 18 hours the gluten organizes itself and the yeast has time to build flavor from a quarter teaspoon. That suits camp perfectly, since the only active labor is 30 seconds of stirring and a fire you were building anyway.
The preheated Dutch oven is not optional. A cold pot lets the dough spread before it sets, and you get a flat disc. Hot cast iron plus a sealed lid traps the dough’s own steam, which is what gives the crust its shell. Coals go mostly on top — heat from below scorches the bottom long before the middle is done.
Packing
Measure the flour, salt, and yeast together into one bag at home. At camp you are adding water to a bag, not weighing three things over a picnic table. Carry the cornmeal in a film canister.
Variations
- Stir a handful of dried rosemary or garlic powder into the dry mix.
- No Dutch oven: bake it flat as a skillet loaf in a covered pan, lid weighted with a foil-wrapped rock, over low coals.
- Half the dough makes flatbread. Press it thin and fry it in oil.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/jim-laheys-no-knead-bread