Sausage Cheese Bake in a Dutch Oven
Yeast dough, swiss and parmesan, sausage in the middle. A car-camping day-one project with coals.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 76
- protein
- 19 g
- serves
- 12
- prep
- 25 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total time
- 65 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Breakfast
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Unbleached all-purpose flour | 3 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Instant yeast | 2 tsp | |
| Shelf-stable whole milk | 1 cup | boxed UHT milk, no cooler needed |
| Sugar | 2 tbsp | |
| Unsalted butter, softened | 2 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Shredded swiss cheese | 1 cup | |
| Grated parmesan | 1/2 cup | the shelf-stable green-can kind works |
| Bulk sausage, uncooked | 12 oz | breakfast, italian, or andouille |
| Bread crumbs | 1/4 cup | |
| Fresh parsley, chopped | optional |
Method
- At home or at camp, mix flour, yeast, milk, sugar, butter, salt, swiss, and parmesan in a bowl until it pulls into a shaggy mass.
- Knead eight minutes by hand. It should go smooth and slack, not tight.
- Cover and leave it to double. Ninety minutes in the shade, closer to sixty if the day is hot. Cold days, set the bowl near the fire ring but not in the heat.
- Work the bread crumbs and parsley into the raw sausage with your fingers until there are no crumb pockets left.
- Press the dough out into a rectangle, spread the sausage over it, roll it up the long way, and cut twelve slices.
- Butter a 12-inch dutch oven, stand the slices in it cut side up, and let them puff for thirty minutes.
- Burn a fire down to coals. Put 8 coals under the oven and 16 on the lid, aiming for about 375F.
- Bake 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the oven and lid a quarter turn every ten minutes. Done is when a slice pulled from the middle shows no pink sausage.
This is a real bread recipe, so it belongs at a car-camping site where you have a cooler, a table, and time to let dough rise. The cheese goes into the dough rather than on top, which is what keeps the crumb tender once it cools off in cold air. Boxed UHT milk replaces refrigerated milk with no change to the result.
Raw sausage in a rolled dough is the part that can go wrong. Bread crumbs mixed into the meat soak up rendering fat so it does not pool and leave a greasy layer under the spiral. Coal placement matters more than time: heavy on the lid, light underneath, or the bottoms scorch before the middle cooks through.
Packing
Premeasure flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and both cheeses into one zip bag at home. Sausage and butter ride in the cooler and get used the first night out.
Variations
- Swap the swiss for cheddar if that is what the store has.
- Skipping the dough entirely: brown the sausage, stir in the cheese and a can of biscuit dough, bake the same way.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/sausage-filled-cheese-rolls