# Baking in a fireplace?



## mdprepper (Jan 22, 2010)

I know I can cook in a regular home (wood burning) fireplace, but what about baking bread/biscuits? I have a castiron bean pot (but not a dutch oven-it is on my wish list) and castiron skillets. I wanted to give it a try this winter, since we are burning anyway. Any suggestions, experiences?


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## bunkerbob (Sep 29, 2009)

mdprepper said:


> I know I can cook in a regular home fireplace, but what about baking bread/biscuits? I have a castiron bean pot (but not a dutch oven-it is on my wish list) and castiron skillets. I wanted to give it a try this winter, since we are burning anyway. Any suggestions, experiences?


In the winter I cook on our wood stove constantly, just baked potatoes the other day, beans, soups, hot water kettle always on for coffee and tea.

I just had a thought about converting my barrel smoker/BBQ with side firebox to bake pizza in, just line the grill with fire bricks and place the items in it. Its nice because the fire is outside of the unit.:dunno:


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

Follow standard outdoor cooking practices when cooking with cast-iron over a fireplace. Never put the iron into the flames, only on the coal bed or just above the coal-bed (rack). Depending on the type of food cooking, you may wish to have a lid on the cast-iron to keep the foods moist-n-tender.

Try not to stir up the coals too much once you start cooking the food.

When cooking with a dutch-oven, spoon hot coals to the top of the oven - the lid - when you are cooking. It will help create a better heat. Dutch-oven cooking is great for virtually any recipe you wish to try that is oven-based. Cookies, cakes, breads, buns, stews, chillies, roasts, chicken, turkey, etc. I have been cooking with my dutch-oven for years and recently purchased 3 recipe books specific to DutchOven cooking full of tricks, tips and hints for cooking all your favorite recipes.

You can also practice stove-top dutch-oven cooking as well as oven-based dutch-oven cooking (follow normal recipe for oven baking and just toss it all into the dutch-oven first).


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

bunkerbob said:


> In the winter I cook on our wood stove constantly, just baked potatoes the other day, beans, soups, hot water kettle always on for coffee and tea.
> 
> I just had a thought about converting my barrel smoker/BBQ with side firebox to bake pizza in, just line the grill with fire bricks and place the items in it. Its nice because the fire is outside of the unit.:dunno:


I cook pizza all the time on my propane BBQs. It adds a nice smoky flavour to the pizza. I have a 16" cast-iron skillet that I put on the rack of the BBQ and the pizza goes into the pan. I normally cook on fairly low heat in the BBQ (no built-in thermometer) and just watch it carefully. I am not a "timer" - cooker, I just go with what feels right.

You could purchase some of the cheap pizza's from Walmart to test / try out the pizza cooking till you have it figured out - then start making your own (I believe that I put one of my pizza recipes into the RecipeShare section).


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## pdx210 (Jan 8, 2010)

you can mage very good bread in a dutch oven also home made wood ovens are not that hard to make


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## sailaway (Mar 12, 2009)

Dutch ovens and other cast iron cooking equiptment can be found at garage sales. Backwoods Man had a good article about the Lodge Hibatchi and everything you can use it for. I'm looking for one of those.:2thumb:


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

We got all our cast at auctions or yard sales. Cheap. :2thumb:


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