We had a left over tube of crescents and slices of ham, so we decided to bring those two together to make a fun and tasty breakfast combo: the Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring

Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring Campfire Cooking

Traveling on the road, even when it’s the two of us, can get kinda lonesome. I have a brilliant, kind, rational, hard-working, funny, and adventurous travel companion. But sometimes, we want to also have friends. Traveling does allow us to visit friends who have scattered all over the place, but there are also long friend gaps, were it’s just us. So, when I can convince a friend to join us for a few days, I get really excited. And I express this excitement with cooking. (That and, I want them to have so much fun eating and exploring with us that they will join us again.) So, once I had the confirmation that some friends would be visiting for a long weekend, I started launched into overdrive to come up with some memorable recipes. Of course, I made the Campfire Bacon And Eggs Hash. But for this special occasion, I also concocted the Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring.

Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring Recipe

Serves 4-8

Ingredients

8 eggs

8 thin slices of ham
cheddar cheese (grated or sliced, either works fine)
8 large crescent dinner rolls (one package)

Salt
Pepper
Cooking oil

Equipment

Cast Iron Dutch Oven
Cast Iron Cooking Tripod (This is more optional depending on the features of your fire pit)

Directions

Scrambling Eggs

Cooking eggs over a campfire is a challenge. It’s easy to get the pan too hot if it is directly over the flame and destroy the eggs. Instead, spread a little cooking cooking oil on the bottom of your pan. Heat up you pan. And when it hot enough for cooking eggs, take it off the fire and scramble the eggs with salt and pepper with the pan’s residual heat.

Ideally, you would cook your eggs in a separate pan from the dutch oven so that the dutch oven is still cool enough to immediately move on to assembling the breakfast ring. If you are limited to just the dutch oven, though, you’ll need to allot enough time for the base to cool down so that you don’t burn your fingers while arranging all the components of the breakfast ring.

Composing the Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring

When composing the breakfast ring, it is probably easiest to just refer to the step-by-step pictures I’ve included to see where and how to place all the ingredients in the dutch oven. All the same, I’ll attempt to provide cogent written instructions as well.

Place triangles of crescent roll pastry along the edges of the dutch oven so that the flat ends overlap three inches from the outer edge of the dutch oven’s bottom and the points of the pastry slightly fall over the lip. Next, layer ham slices, one over each piece of pastry. If you have sliced cheese, place it on top of the ham. Otherwise, go ahead and spread the scrambled eggs around the edges of the dutch oven, on top of the ham. Try not to have them spread beyond the edge of the center pastry. If you have grated cheese, now sprinkle it over the eggs.

Fold over the outer tips of the pastry and ham. Try to have the outer tip connect to the flat end of each crescent pastry so that each pastry completes a loop around the ham, eggs, and cheese.

Cooking the Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring

Of course, if you are cheating at home with all the conveniences of a kitchen, this is the point when you can heat up your oven to 375°F and just cook the ring for 20 to 25 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden brown. Otherwise, now is the time to set the dutch oven over the heat and collect a few coals to pop on top of the lid. Bake ring until the pastry is golden brown.

Serving the Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring

Depending on how hungry your guests are and what other goodies are available, this breakfast ring can feed four to eight people. Gently separate each ring of pastry and serve. We recommend accompanying this dish with some fresh fruit. Enjoy!