Skillet Pepperoni Pizza Pull-Aparts
Yeast dough, pepperoni, and cheese baked in a covered pan over coals. A camp bread that eats like a meal.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 86
- protein
- 16 g
- serves
- 7, scales
- prep
- 75 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 100 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
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Bread flour | 3 cups | premixed at home with the salt |
|---|---|---|
| Active dry yeast | 1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | plus 1/8 tsp for the butter, 1/4 tsp for the sauce |
| Honey | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Lukewarm water | 1 1/4 cups | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | 1 for the dough, 1 for the sauce |
| Butter | 1/4 cup | softened; keep it in the cooler until you need it |
| Grated parmesan | 3 tbsp | |
| Italian seasoning | 1/4 tsp | |
| Minced garlic | 1/2 tsp for the butter, 2 cloves for the sauce | |
| Thin-sliced pepperoni | 6 oz | |
| Shredded mozzarella | 1 1/4 cups | |
| Canned San Marzano tomatoes | 1 cup | chopped, juice and all |
| Tomato paste | 1 tsp | tube, not a can you have to finish |
Method
- Stir the flour-salt-yeast mix with the honey dissolved in 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water, then the oil. Knead in the bowl or on a clean lid until it stops sticking to your hands, about eight minutes.
- Cover and let it rise somewhere warm until doubled, roughly an hour. Sun on a rock beats shade.
- Build the fire down to coals while it rises. You want a bed of embers, not flames.
- Mash the butter with the parmesan, 1/8 tsp salt, the italian seasoning, and 1/2 tsp garlic.
- Press the dough flat, spread the garlic butter over it, then scatter the pepperoni and mozzarella. Roll it into a log and cut seven rounds.
- Oil the dutch oven, stand the rounds inside cut side up, and lid it. Set it on a ring of coals with more coals on the lid, about twice as many up top as below.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Rotate the pot a quarter turn every five minutes and the lid the other way, or one side burns.
- For the sauce, warm the oil in a small pot, cook the 2 cloves of garlic thirty seconds, add the tomatoes, paste, and 1/4 tsp salt, and simmer ten minutes while the rolls bake.
This is a proper bread bake, so it belongs at a car camp or basecamp where you have an hour to let dough rise and a fire you can burn down to coals. The dutch oven is doing what an oven does: trapping heat around the dough so it sets before the bottom scorches. Coals on the lid are not optional. Heat from below alone gives you raw tops and a black underside.
The rolls are cut from a rolled log, which is what gets fat and cheese into every layer instead of only on top. Rotating the pot and lid in opposite directions each five minutes is the whole trick to even browning over an uneven fire. The dipping sauce takes ten minutes on a second burner or the edge of the coals and is mostly salt and tomato paste concentrating while the bread bakes.
Packing
Combine flour, yeast, and the 1 tsp salt in one bag at home so camp mixing is one pour. Pepperoni, cheese, and butter live in the cooler. Tomatoes, paste, oil, and seasoning ride in the food box.
Variations
- No dutch oven: bake the rounds in a foil-lined skillet with a foil lid and coals on top.
- Swap the pepperoni for salami or drop it and double the parmesan.
- Shelf-stable version: shelf-stable pepperoni sticks, powdered parmesan, and oil in place of butter.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/pepperoni-pizza-rolls