Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread

Dutch oven cooking has become one of our favorite family camping activities and this dutch oven sourdough bread is the one thing we always must make.

My husband grew up going camping in tents in the mountains with his family.  I grew up going to the beach or going to our cabin.  Tent camping has never been super fun for me.  However, by the time I met my husband his family had started camping in trailers, with running water (although limited), refrigerators and toilets.  Now that is the kind of camping I could handle.  All though we have a stove, oven and microwave in our trailer, in the last couple years, we have really come to love dutch oven cooking.

Anytime we do any dutch oven cooking, we make this dutch oven sourdough bread.  It is only 4 ingredients and so delicious.  It does take time, since you let it rise for up to 24 hours, but it’s easy to mix together and set aside until dinner time.  The last time we went camping, I just mixed all the ingredients together with my hand since I didn’t have a mixer or any other tools for mixing up bread dough.  Once all the ingredients are mixed together, place the dough in a large bowl or I use a large tupperware with a lid, place the dough inside, cover it, and let that yeast get to work.  After 12-24 hours you are ready to bake your bread.

Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread

Yield: 8 servings

Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread

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Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 6 cups flour
• 3 tsp salt
• 3 tsp yeast
• 3 cups warm water

Instructions

1. Mix all ingredients together and let rise for 12-24 hours.
2. Once ready to bake, spray dutch oven with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Put dough into dutch oven and cover.
4. Place 10 charcoal briquettes under the dutch oven and 20 on top (12 inch dutch oven)
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Cleaning is not one of my most favorite tasks.  I especially hate washing a dutch oven. I am all about easy cleanup.  I love these foil liners for the dutch oven.  I can just throw them away once we are done.  Spray the foil liner with nonstick cooking spray, put it in your dutch oven and add your dough to the foil liner.

We have had some not so successful experiences with dutch oven cooking.  We tried dutch oven cooking in the sand dunes and our food didn’t cook fully.  We thought the sand might have soaked up all the heat from the coals under the dutch oven.  We had the same thing happen again when we were camping once and tried dutch oven cooking and our food took twice as long to cook because the bottom wasn’t getting hot enough.  So my husband rigged up this metal stand for our dutch oven cooking.

Clear away all pine needles, rocks, etc., of a flat area and brush away any loose dirt until you get to hard pack ground.  Once your charcoal is ready, place 10 briquettes down  in a somewhat even spaced formation.

Place you dutch oven, with the sourdough bread inside, on top of the 10 briquettes.  Cover the dutch oven and place 20 briquettes evenly spaced on the top of the dutch oven.

Let it cook for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown.  Don’t lift the lid to check on it until it has cooked at least 30 minutes.  Your bread could even be a little more golden brown than this pictured below.

Dump your dutch oven sourdough bread onto a cutting board to cool slightly.  This is the hardest part for me, because it smells so good and I just want to eat it! 🙂

This is such a fun addition to any dutch oven camping meal.  There just is nothing better than hot homemade bread.

Just a note, this bread can also be made at home in your oven.  If you have a cast iron dutch oven with a lid, you could bake your bread at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Happy Baking!

Liz