Most people seem to inherit their pie iron. A grandparent had one, or it came out every summer at the same campground, and by the time you own one you’ve already eaten a hundred things out of it.
I just found mine in a store.
I have a weakness for cast iron — skillets, dutch ovens, anything that gets better the longer you use it. So when I walked past two hinged cast iron plates on a pair of long handles, I stopped and looked it up standing right there in the aisle.
Why I recommend it
A pie iron is two cast iron plates on long handles that clamp shut. You butter two slices of bread, put something between them, close it, and set the whole thing down in the coals.
What I make most is pizza — here’s the recipe I use — and pies, which is where the name comes from. Butter, filling, a few minutes a side.
Here’s what I didn’t expect. It turns dinner into the thing everyone is already doing. Nobody is standing at a stove while the rest of the group sits at the fire. Everyone builds their own and cooks it themselves, which means you’re not taking orders and nobody eats around the one ingredient they don’t like. Kids can do it with a bit of supervision.
I’ve only made pizza and pies so far. Lately I keep seeing people making hamburgers in them, and a few things I’d never have thought of. It’s two plates and a hinge, and I still don’t know everything it does.
Missy’s Honest Take
It’s been close to problem-free. One thing stuck, and one mistake I keep making that’s entirely my own fault.
The sticking is almost always seasoning. Rome’s cast iron comes with a wax coating that has to be melted off and the iron seasoned before its first use — and if that gets skipped, or the seasoning wears thin, food grabs. You can fix it any time. You don’t have to live with it.
The other one: you will overstuff it. Filling squeezes out the sides and drips into the fire and you lose some of it. That’s a delicious problem to have, and I haven’t learned my lesson yet.
What you’ll need
Bread and butter, and whatever’s going inside. That’s most of it.
You want coals, not flames. A pie iron goes down into the hot stuff at the edge of a fire that’s been burning a while. Drop it into a tall flame and the outside scorches before the middle is warm.
Season it before the first use. Rome’s own guidance: melt the wax coating off over the fire, wipe it clean with a paper towel, coat it inside and out with a high-heat oil like canola, and heat it for about fifteen minutes — then do it a second time and wipe out the excess. Not on the stovetop, not in the oven. Afterwards, rinse and dry it straight away; water left sitting on cast iron will rust it.
A heavy glove or long tongs help, and a plate to slide it onto.
Get this gear
A pie iron is for people who want the fire to be part of dinner instead of something to work around. If you’re counting ounces on a trail or you need to eat fast, this isn’t it — it’s heavy, and it cooks at the speed of coals.
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