In my “The Parks Podcast” interview with Karl Rand from Shenandoah National Park, he mentioned that “Pie Iron Pizza” was his favorite campfire activity. It was clear that I needed to expand my horizons by learning about and testing a pie iron. I took my nephew, Teddy, along for the ride.
Step 1 – Gather your supplies & ingredients
Pie Iron
I picked up a pie iron from a local sports and outdoor store. A quick Google search shows they are available on Amazon, REI, Walmart, Scheels, etc. I don’t know the difference between cast iron and Teflon. I went with the Rome Pie Iron simply because it’s what shows up in most of my research on how to make a pie iron pizza. I also have a serious love of cast iron.
Bread
Butter
Pizza Sauce
Cheese
Toppings – We did pepperoni…but you can add whatever you enjoy
Step 2 – Butter the bread
You’ll need to butter both slices of bread. Put the first slice, butter side down, into one side of the Pie Iron.
Step 3 – Add sauce, toppings & top bread
We did a test on how much sauce to put on the bread. We first started with a very light layer thinking that we didn’t want a mushy pie. But it lacked flavor. The next time we did a heaping tablespoon or two of sauce and it was much better for flavor…and didn’t make the bread mushy.
We did a similar test with the toppings. You can definitely put quite a bit of pepperoni. I think we did 5-6 slices and it was just fine and gave us a lot of flavor.
Place the 2nd slice of bread on top with the butter up. Close your pie iron.
Step 4 – Place Pie Iron in the fire
Place the pie iron in the fire. You’ll want to rotate it periodically. The directions on the Rome Pie Iron say 3-6 minutes. I think that’s about right. We took a peek inside to make sure it was toasty.
Step 5 – YUM! Enjoy your Pie Iron Pizza
Time to enjoy your Pie Iron Pizza. Put it on a plate and let it cool a little…it’s really hot when coming out of the fire.
Other treats…
We didn’t stop with pizza. For dessert, we created apple pies. It’s the same process, but add apple pie filling (or whatever flavor that you would like).
We have a lot of ideas for other things we could make with the pie iron. We’ll update you with any other Pie Iron experiments.
