Work Home and Family - Summer Recipes - Pizza in a Dutch Oven
So, I'm not really sure you can call this a "recipe". Maybe "cooking method" is a better description.
Cooking Pizza in a Dutch Oven
Normally we make homemade pizza once a week at our house - either Friday or Saturday most of the time. On our camping trip this summer, I was looking for something other than grilled meat, sandwiches or hot dogs. I stumbled across several people talking about cooking pizza on a campfire.
I'd heard of cooking pizza on a gas grill (and actually done it) but this was different.
My first idea was after finding a scouts cookbook that talked about English Muffin pizzas cooked in open tuna cams. We've done those in the oven at home but they're not so much our thing. We like our "real" pizza - large and cut into slices and loaded with vegetables.
Then I stumbled across the idea of cooking pizza in a Dutch Oven.
We have a Dutch Oven and we could easily do this.
So here's the recipe:
A Dutch Oven
Aluminum foil
Pre-cooked/Pre-made pizza dough that fits inside of your Dutch Oven
Pizza sauce
Toppings
Heat the Dutch Oven in the coals of your campfire and heat until warm. This will take about 10-15 minutes depending on the temperature of your campfire coals and how deeply you bury the Dutch Oven in them.
Top your pizza dough with your sauce and toppings.
Place enough loosely wadded balls of aluminum foil in the bottom of the Dutch Oven to form a "shelf" for the pizza to sit on. Allow air to circulate between and around the balls. This forms an "oven" for the pizza to cook in, similar to the oven in your kitchen at home.
Place the pizza on top of the aluminum foil balls. Put the lid on the Dutch Oven.
Cook for 10-20 minutes or until cheese is melted to your desired level of done. This will depend on your campfire, the size of your pizza, and your Dutch Oven. Once you are close to done, keep a careful eye on things - we burned the bottom of our pizza by getting distracted!
Note: I didn't dare try this with our soft, uncooked homemade pizza dough. We used purchased pre-cooked pizza dough rounds for this, since they were shelf stable and would keep well at our campsite for a few days. You could make this with homemade pizza dough by cooking the dough beforehand partway or you could buy a frozen pizza and use that too.
There you go - how to make pizza in a Dutch Oven! Enjoy!
