Pizza is a perfect Camping meal. Everyone can be happy with their ingredients, especially if you can build the pies yourself. Being able to bake them quickly is important. To make this great pizza, you need to flip your lid!
A “made from scratch” Camp Pizza is a challenge. Baking over a campfire or on a propane stove, grill, or flat top seems impossible. How do you control the high baking heat without burning the pie?
The solution involves the traditional cast iron Dutch Oven, but you need to turn the traditional Dutch Oven upside down. In earlier articles I have talked about other ways to use the Dutch Oven lid for frying. The lid can also be a baking stone.
When making a Pizza on your backyard grill, the top never really gets baked. If you wait for the toppings to finish, the bottom of the crust will be burned. Thick crust pizzas take forever to bake. That’s because they are not really baking. The pie is on the hot grate, but all the heat is near the grill lid! You need to place the pie pan/stone in an elevated perch, so that it is baking near the grill lid. The Dutch oven is a perfect way to elevate the pizza. The cast iron will keep heat so that when one pie is done, you can continue with the next. A small pizza stone or metal pizza pan will sit nicely on the inverted Dutch oven’s legs. You can check the baking without burning the bottom. The whole pizza will be baked at the same time.
Campout pizza crusts are great from scratch, but you can have a shortcut by using Boboli crusts or premade pizza crusts, tortillas, English muffins, or flatbreads. I usually make my camp or backyard dough ahead of time. A yeast crust needs to rise and rest for a long time. Just keep the finished crust balls in the cooler. You can press and roll them out using a bottle or a roller. The size of your pizza will be limited to the size of your Dutch Oven lid.
The concave lid of a Dutch Oven is a perfect baking stone. Lay the pizza on the upside-down lid. Position the lid so it is stable on hot fire coals or charcoal briquets. Place the preheated Dutch Oven itself upside down onto the lid. Shovel a few coals onto the oven’s bottom. You can grease the lid to prevent the crust from sticking. Aluminum foil also works well. You can use the foil to help pick the finished pie off the lid.
When I am camping, I use what I have for tools. The oven will be hot. Oven mits work but so do vise grips, pliers, wire, or… A spatula or two can serve as a peel. You can cut the pie into slices using a large knife. In Scouts we made a cutter from a coffee can lid with an axle. The camp shovel is perfect for managing the coals. A hammer or Dutch Oven lid lifting tools can also help. Be creative and think out of the Pizza box.
If a little charcoal gets onto your pizza, it will serve as an anti-flatulent and add just a little texture. Everything gets a little charcoal in/on it when cooking on a fire.
You can bake or heat up about anything when thinking out of the box and turning things upside down. Any firepit, campfire, grill, grated fire lid can be used for baking with a Dutch Oven.
Bon Appetite!
Montana Grant
