Dutch Oven Peach and Bacon Pizza
Semolina crust baked in a dutch oven, topped with dried peaches, bacon, and blue cheese.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 104
- protein
- 18 g
- serves
- 6
- prep
- 25 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 40 min
- water
- 300 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
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 1 1/2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Semolina or durum flour | 1/2 cup | gives the crust its chew |
| Instant yeast | 1 tsp | more than a home recipe, because you are not waiting a day |
| Sugar | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 1/4 tsp | |
| Lukewarm water | 3/4 cup | plus a splash more for the peaches |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | one for the dough, one for the pot |
| Dried onion flakes | 1/3 cup | stand-in for caramelized onions |
| Fully cooked bacon | 4 oz | shelf-stable precooked slices, chopped |
| Dried peach slices | 1 cup | |
| Blue cheese | 3 oz | crumbled, from the cooler |
| Dried thyme | 1 tsp |
Method
- Mix the flour blend, yeast, sugar, and salt in a bag or bowl. Add the water and 1 tbsp oil and work it into a shaggy ball. Knead in the bag for two minutes.
- Let it sit somewhere warm for an hour. In the sun against a rock is fine. It should roughly double.
- While it rises, cover the peaches and onion flakes with warm water. Ten minutes. Drain off anything that has not been absorbed.
- Build a fire and burn it down to coals. You want a bed under the oven and a shovelful on the lid.
- Oil the dutch oven with the second tablespoon. Press the dough out flat across the bottom and a little up the sides.
- Scatter on the onions, peaches, and bacon, then the blue cheese and thyme.
- Set the oven on a thin bed of coals with about twice as many on the lid. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Rotate the pot and the lid a quarter turn every few minutes so it does not scorch on one side.
- It is done when the crust edge is firm and browned underneath. Lift a corner with a knife and look.
Home pizza dough leans on a long cold rise for flavor. In camp there is no fridge and no overnight, so the yeast goes up to a full teaspoon and the dough rises once, warm and fast. You lose some depth. The semolina makes up for it — it gives the crust body and a coarse chew that survives being baked on coals rather than a stone.
The rest is substitution. Caramelized onions become dried onion flakes soaked back to life, fresh peaches become dried slices, and the drained yogurt cheese is gone entirely because it will not keep. Blue cheese and bacon carry the salt, the peaches carry the sweet, and that contrast was the whole point of the original. Heat control is the real skill here: more coals on the lid than under it, or the bottom burns before the top sets.
Packing
Premix the dry crust ingredients at home in one bag. Peaches, onion flakes, and bacon go in a second bag. Blue cheese rides in the cooler, wrapped tight, or it perfumes everything else.
Variations
- Swap the blue cheese for a hard aged cheese if the cooler is a question mark.
- No fire: a foil-lined pot on a low camp stove burner with a lid will do it, but expect a pale top.
- Dried figs work the same way as the peaches and are less fussy about rehydrating.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/bacon-blue-cheese-peach-pizza-with-semolina-pizza-crust