Dutch Oven Challah
Braided egg bread baked in a covered dutch oven over coals. A long day in camp, not a fast one.
- calories
- 480
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 87
- protein
- 13 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 150 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 190 min
- water
- 420 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Day one only
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Bread flour | 8 cups | premeasured with the salt at home |
|---|---|---|
| Active dry yeast | 1 1/2 tbsp | |
| Honey | 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp | |
| Warm water | 1 3/4 cups | warm to the touch, not hot |
| Vegetable oil | 1/2 cup | plus a little for the bowl and the pot |
| Eggs | 5 | four for the dough, one for the wash |
| Salt | 2 1/2 tsp |
Method
- Stir the yeast and 1 tbsp of the honey into the warm water in your largest pot. Leave it five minutes, until it foams. No foam means dead yeast and no bread.
- Beat in four eggs, the oil, the rest of the honey, and the salt. Add the flour a cup at a time, stirring until it stops being a batter.
- Turn it out onto a clean board or a floured lid and knead about ten minutes, until it is smooth and stops sticking to your hands.
- Oil the pot, return the dough, cover it, and set it somewhere warm. An hour, until it has doubled. Cool weather makes this longer, not shorter.
- Punch it down and let it rise a second time, about 45 minutes.
- Divide into three ropes, braid them, and coil the braid to fit the dutch oven. Oil the oven well. Let the loaf rest 20 minutes while you build the coals.
- Beat the last egg with 1 tbsp water and brush it over the loaf.
- Bake covered with about 8 coals under the oven and 16 on the lid, roughly 375F, for 35 to 40 minutes. Rotate the oven and the lid a quarter turn every ten minutes so it does not scorch on one side.
- It is done when the bottom sounds hollow. Pull it out of the pot to cool or the crust goes soft.
This is a car-camping project, not a trail recipe. Nothing about it is fast: two rises, a braid, and forty minutes of managing coals. The reason to do it anyway is that fresh bread out of a dutch oven is a thing you cannot resupply, and the dough tolerates a lot of neglect while you do other camp chores.
The honey and oil are structural, not decorative. Both keep the crumb soft for a second day, which matters when there is no fridge and no toaster. Coal placement is the part people get wrong: twice as many on the lid as underneath, or the bottom burns before the middle sets. Eggs are the weak link on shelf life, so bake this on day one.
Packing
Measure flour, salt, and yeast into separate bags at home; yeast dies if it sits against salt. Honey and oil travel in leakproof bottles. Eggs need a hard case and get used the first day out.
Variations
- Halve everything for a single loaf and a shorter bake, about 25 minutes.
- Powdered whole egg reconstituted with water replaces the four dough eggs if you cannot carry shells; you still want a real egg for the wash.
- Leftovers fry in butter or oil the next morning.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/braided-challah-loaves