The dutch oven is one of the most versatile cooking utensils you can use at camp. You can bake, fry, braise and boil in a dutch oven and I will try to give some helpful hints and methods for using one.

Lets start with the dutch oven and what it looks like. Most people have one that you use on the stove top or in your oven. They are 4-8 quart "soup pot" style with a lid. There are dutch ovens made just for outdoor cooking, the best are cast iron or heavy-duty, thick walled aluminum with short legs on the bottom to keep it off the coals, and a the lid has a lip on it to keep the coals you put on top from fall off. Click here to see a picture of both types, stove top on the left, camp style on the right.

You can use the "soup pot" style too, but you want to make sure that the handle on the lid isn't plastic, wood, or anything else that will burn, melt, etc. To keep the bottom of it off the coals you can use 3 small rocks to set the dutch oven on and make a lip out of tin foil around the lid to hold the coals on top.

This is a oven, and just like the oven you use at home you need to pre-heat it before you use it!  To bake biscuits, lightly grease the inside of the dutch oven and place the biscuits inside, they may be touching. Set the dutch oven on top of a layer of coals, make sure that the bottom IS NOT TOUCHING the coals. If your dutch oven doesn't have legs, prop it up over the coals using 3 rocks. Then place another layer of coals on top of the lid. Be sure to rotate the bottom of your dutch oven 1/4 turn clockwise and the top 1/4 turn counter-clockwise every 10 to 15 minutes to make sure there are no hot spots that will burn one area of your dish and not cook another. Rotating the oven and the lid makes sure the heat is evenly distributed through-out the oven. Click here to see finished biscuits in a dutch oven.

To bake bread, cakes and pies you do the same thing but you place the cake or pie pan inside the dutch oven and then bake for how ever long the recipe calls for. Be sure to place 3 small rocks under the pan the pie, cake or bread is being baked in to keep the pan from touching the bottom of the oven. You may have to add more coals to keep the temperature up, and judging the time to do this takes a little practice but is easier than you may think. If you do not have a pan that will fit into your dutch oven you can make one out of tin foil.

Remember,the more coals you use the hotter the temperature is going to be. This also takes a little practice but also is not hard to learn. For cakes, pies, etc. I use about 1 inch under the oven, and 2 inches on top. Biscuits take about 3  inches on top and 1 1/2 inches on the bottom.