Jalapeño Popper Skillet Bread
Cheese, heat, and a lid over coals. Camp bread that goes with everything.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 91
- protein
- 11 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 120 min
- cook
- 50 min
- total time
- 170 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
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Bread flour | 5 cups | premeasured at home with the sugar, salt, and milk powder |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1 3/4 tsp | |
| Whole milk powder | 1/4 cup | stands in for the 3/4 cup fresh milk |
| Active dry yeast | 2 1/4 tsp | one packet |
| Water | 2 cups | warm, around 110F |
| Cream cheese | 4 oz | cubed, cooler item |
| Sharp cheddar | 6 oz | diced small |
| Jalapeños | 2-3 | diced, seeds in or out |
| Shredded cheddar | 1/4 cup | for the top |
| Oil or butter | 1 tbsp | for the pot |
Method
- Warm 2 cups of water until it feels barely hot on your wrist. Stir in the yeast and leave it five minutes. If it does not foam, the yeast is dead and so is the bread.
- Dump the flour mix into your largest pot and pour in the yeast water. Stir with a spoon until it comes together, then knead in the pot for about ten minutes. It should go from sticky to smooth.
- Work in the cream cheese cubes, then the diced cheddar and jalapeños. The cream cheese will streak the dough. That is fine.
- Cover the pot and let it rise until roughly doubled. An hour in warm weather, two in cold. Set it in the sun if you have any.
- Grease the dutch oven, punch the dough down, and press it in. Let it rise a second time, about 30 minutes, while you burn a fire down to coals.
- Bake with the lid on: 8 to 10 coals under, 16 to 18 on top, aiming for something near 375F. Rotate the pot and the lid a quarter turn every ten minutes so it does not scorch on one side.
- At 40 minutes, lift the lid, scatter the shredded cheddar on top, and give it 10 more. Done when it sounds hollow tapped on the side.
- Let it sit 15 minutes before cutting or the middle will smear.
This started as a plain white sandwich loaf and picked up popper fillings along the way. The cream cheese is the part doing structural work, not the jalapeños. Fat in the dough shortens the gluten and gives you a soft, tight crumb instead of the chewy open one bread flour usually makes. The diced cheddar melts into pockets rather than dispersing, which is why it goes in whole rather than shredded.
The fresh milk is replaced with whole milk powder mixed into the dry bag, so the only cooler items are cheese and peppers. Dutch oven baking is mostly a heat-management problem: more coals on the lid than under the pot, or the bottom burns before the middle sets. Two hours of that is a car-camping or basecamp project, not something to attempt on a stove.
Packing
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and milk powder in one gallon bag at home. Yeast stays in its own packet, dry. Cheeses and jalapeños ride in the cooler; the cheddar can be diced ahead.
Variations
- No dutch oven: bake it in a foil-lined skillet with a foil tent and a ring of coals, checking sooner.
- Swap the jalapeños for a rehydrated tablespoon of dried chile flakes if you want the heat without the cooler space.
- Leftovers slice into griddle sandwiches the next morning.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/jalapeno-popper-sandwich-loaf