Did you know you can start the campfire and whip up some Dutch Oven Buttermilk Biscuits? I love taking ingredients out camping and knowing I can make a full meal on the fire!
Biscuits really complete a meal, in my opinion! When serving venison stew I love a good bread to soak up every last drop. But I also don't love being tied to my kitchen, especially in good weather. That's why I am digging in to learning how to cook in coals or over the fire.
I love to make a good venison roast with onions, and it makes its own gravy that cries for a good biscuit on the side! Kids also love mixing up biscuits. While these are cut-out which requires a few extra steps, they are still super simple to make.
If you simply prefer or are more comfortable with baking in your oven, you can make up some drop biscuits with heavy cream. Any type of biscuit is amazing with butter, jam, honey, whatever ya got.
Key Ingredients
Flour - Use regular old all-purpose flour here. I prefer to purchase unbleached organic options, but any white flour is good here.
Buttermilk - You can use the cultured kind you get at the store or make your own cheater option.
Butter - Salted or unsalted works fine here, and the key is to keep it cold.
The Usuals - you can't make bread without salt, sugar, and leavening.
How to Make Campfire Buttermilk Biscuits
***See recipe card below for precise measurements and instructions.***
Step 1: Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Step 2: Dice up butter and whisk in until the flour is crumbly.
Step 3: Add in buttermilk and stir until a dough forms.
Step 4: Roll out the dough and cut out biscuits. You can make round or square, doesn't matter. Line them up in your parchment-lined dutch oven.
Step 5: Nestle the pot in the coals and top the lid with coals as well. If you have extra dough go ahead and pop it in a skillet on top.
Step 6: "Bake" until golden on top, making sure the bottoms don't burn.
Tips and Tricks
- Only put as many biscuits as fit in a single layer so they don't grow together. Touching is fine, but you don't want a solid mass of dough.
- Keep in mind the coals or fire can get pretty hot, and because these biscuits have butter, they can burn easily.
- You can add a skillet over the coals on top of the dutch oven, how fun is that?
How Can I Cook While Camping?
It does take a bit of extra planning, but you can always, always take fresh ingredients with you. It doesn't have to be processed, whether that's from the store, or even how we do it - Marius will typically pack some jerky or freeze dried snack options. So it's processed in a way, but it's ingredients we know!
I went into it in my Campfire Pancakes post as well, but you can pack ingredients in bags or jars, or even lidded mixing bowls. Label everything! Whether it's mom brain, forgetfulness, or just busyness, nobody has time for unlabeled bags. Keep wet and dry separate, keep cold stuff cold and away from raw meats. Look for ways to do double duty, like packing your buttermilk in a jar that can turn into your biscuit cutter!
FAQs
I like having a trusty camping Dutch oven, which means it has a special lid and you can use a lid lifter, and other equipment to cook safely. Remember that the entire Dutch oven will be hot like if you were cooking in an oven so keep heat gloves on hand! Often your lid will have a flat side so you can load it with coals, really making it like an outdoor oven.
Add 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice to your measuring cup, then add milk to the 1 cup line. Let rest while you prep the dry ingredients.
One of my favourite ways is to use butter straight from the freezer and the large holes on a box grater. You can also dice it up with a sharp knife. Either way, keep the butter in the fridge until you are ready to use it! Warm butter melts OUT of the dough, instead of staying inside of it.
Photos by Dante from Shire by the Sea
More Biscuit Recipes
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Dutch Oven Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup cold buttermilk
- ½ cup cold butter
Instructions
- At home or camp, mix all dry ingredients well in a mixing bowl.
- Take your cubed butter and cut into small pieces and add to dry mix, cutting into smaller pieces with a fork or Danish dough whisk, until well crumbled in mixture.
- If you pre-mix the dry ingredients and butter at home place in fridge until leaving and place in a ziplock bag (labelling is important!). Place in the cold cooler if you intend to bring these camping.
- Keep your buttermilk cold in your cooler.
- Get a hot fire going until you have a substantial bed of coals, or fire up 24 charcoal briquettes or a combination of both.
- While fire is going or coals are getting hot, mix your buttermilk in with the ziplock bag mix in a mixing bowl. You could do it in the bag to save dishes but I prefer to use a bowl. Mix together well.
- Drop dough on floured cutting board in a circle shape, adding more flour if necessary, keeping it at about 1.5-2 inches thick.
- With a small glass jar or cup, cut out biscuits. The smaller the cup, the more biscuits you can make.
- Once you have cut what you can, bring dough into a ball and flatten again.
- Add parchment paper to your Dutch oven and carefully place in your biscuits. If there is more biscuits than your Dutch oven can handle, you can cook later or put on a cast iron skillet on top of the Dutch oven once it is lidded for a small biscuit cake.
- Carefully place dutch oven on hot coals…about half underneath, and the remainder on lid once covered.
- Depending on how hot your coals are, this can take anywhere from 20-45 minutes. Use your cast iron lid lifter and gloves and check within the first 20 minutes. Because of the high butter content your biscuits will crisp beautifully to a golden brown on the bottom and and nice lighter yellow/brown on top when done. Be careful not to burn the bottom as your fire could run very hot.
- When done, top with your favourite jam or eat as is!
Notes
- Use your jar from your buttermilk as the biscuit cutter!
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