Dutch Oven Reserve Biscuits
Tall buttermilk biscuits baked in coals, built from powdered dairy and a tin of lard.
- calories
- 330
- weight
- 3.3 oz
- cal / oz
- 100
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 22 min
- total time
- 37 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.
- Breakfast
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 2 cups | for the dough |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 3 tbsp | |
| Baking powder | 2 tsp | |
| Kosher salt | 1 tsp | |
| Lard | 4 tbsp | chilled hard in the cooler or a creek |
| Buttermilk powder | 1/4 cup | reconstitutes to 1 cup |
| Powdered whole milk | 3 tbsp | stands in for the heavy cream |
| All-purpose flour | 1/2 cup | for shaping |
| Lard or ghee | 3 tbsp | melted, for the pan and the tops |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down. You want a bed of coals, not flame. Set a 10-inch dutch oven near the heat to warm.
- Whisk 400 ml of cold water into the buttermilk powder and milk powder in a cup. Let it sit while you work the fat in.
- Combine the 2 cups flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Shave the cold lard into it with a knife and toss until the pieces are coated and pea-sized.
- Pour in the milk and stir just until it holds together in wet clumps. It will look shaggy and too loose. Stop stirring.
- Dump the shaping flour on a plate or lid. Drop eight scoops of dough into it, roll each one to coat, and pat into a round puck.
- Grease the dutch oven with melted fat, set the pucks in touching each other, and brush the tops.
- Lid on. Set the oven on a ring of coals and shovel more coals onto the lid, weighted toward the top. Bake about 22 minutes without peeking before minute 15.
- Pull when the tops are brown and a biscuit lifts clean off the bottom.
Biscuits are a fat-and-flour problem, not a baking problem. The lard has to stay in solid flecks until it hits heat, because those flecks turn to steam and push the layers apart. Warm fat smears into the flour and you get a scone. Everything else here is negotiable; cold fat is not.
The original leans on fresh buttermilk and heavy cream, which is a non-starter without refrigeration. Buttermilk powder and whole milk powder rehydrated together get close enough: the acid still reacts with the baking powder, and the milk fat covers what the cream was doing. Lard replaces the butter entirely because it keeps at ambient temperature and takes a hard chill better. Dough this wet is correct. Rolling each scoop through dry flour is what makes it handleable.
Packing
Premix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt at home in one bag, and the two milk powders in a second, smaller bag. Shaping flour gets its own bag. Lard travels in a screw-top tin and needs to be genuinely cold when it hits the flour, so bury it deep in the cooler overnight.
Variations
- Bacon fat in place of the lard, if you cooked bacon the night before.
- Skip the sugar and stir in a spoonful of dried chives and black pepper for a savory pan.
- No dutch oven: press the dough flat in a greased skillet, cover with foil, and cook slow over low coals, flipping once.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/karl-worleys-family-reserve-biscuits