Bread: The Staff of Life

[SilverBinder]

887988808879Recipe for a recipe: what is your favorite camp bread recipe. I hate the nasty salty chewy taste of bannock. Over the years, I have experimented with many recipes and types of bread or bread substitutes. With the recipes come the various methods of cooking these recipes. That sounds like another thread! :evilgrin:

My recipe for yeast bread Method 1:

2 cups whole wheat flour (I prefer dark German wheat but it's hard to find)
1/2 c rolled oats(steel cut oats will work but makes the bread a bit chunky)
1 pkg yeast
1/4 teaspoon Sea salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
(If you are like me I add a 1/4 c. of sesame seeds and/or bulgar wheat, rye etc. to taste)
cup plus 1/2 cup of warm water.

Whisk dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl then gradually add water until a good dough is formed. It won't take the full amount. (Read some bread recipes and check to see what they suggest for the amount of flours.)

There are two was to proceed knead and no knead, I use the latter. Dump the dough on a floured board. Sprinkle with flour and the proceed to press the dough ball down and fold in half. Do this three or four times.
Place the dough in a clean greased bowl, cover and let rise for overnight. Push the bread down and divide it into usable pieces, place in greased ziplocks and freeze or toss in your pack. When it's doubled in size, decied how to cook it. My favorites are dutch ovens or small folding ovens. There are enough instructions on how to do this. I always butter the top.

Practice this at home!!!!!!!!!! I have had success and abysmal failures. Heat must be monitored. Well I hope this works for you. Note photos are not mine but come from articles that I have used to build similar ovens. Both work but I am making my can stove larger.






"It is better to camp one day than never to have camped at all!"

[snowleopard]

Thanks for posting!

T^

[Ehecatl]

T^

[jus_young]

Thanks for those pictures. My Group Scout Leader managed to blag a couple of empty 25 litre cooking oil cans from the pub where we were having our 'meeting' :ashamed:

The intention was for the Scouts to use them for bread ovens so those pictures are ideal.

[SilverBinder]

Yes I just received a large gallon tin of olive oil to replace the tiny tin stove.

[NickB]

Sounds good that.
I make mine without yeast but with baking powder.
Make a dough with a flavouring of some kind, stock cube, lemon and sugar, oregano, chilly powder etc. Divide it into 8 or 12 balls, squash flat and fry in as little oil as possible fry about 5 min.
I also add a an egg normally which makes it far richer, more delicate, less chewy and a lot easer to eat.
What's good also is if you squash them thinner and put a spoon of last nights left overs on top. Then fold them over and then fry.
It's all good, filling and rugged food that will stay together wrapped in grease proof paper in your pocket to be nibbled at as you walk along.

[NickB]

:rolleyes:Oh yeah, if you add an egg, I think technically it's called a cake

[SilverBinder]

Found a new cooking method: Skillet Biscuits (scones for you in GB)

I use a baking mix that has all the ingredients except liquids and requires only water but you could use a regular biscuit/scone mix. I make it thick and add a tiny bit of oil to the mix. I will put the pre-measured mix in a ziplock bag and add water in the field mix in the bag and use a spoon the drop the mix into hot cooking oil in a skillet. Brown on one side, flip, and cook on the other side until the browned surface begins to crack and ooze. Flip again and cook until done. This takes practice and you don't want to get the pan too hot.

[MadZ]

i use flour, milk powder and water, mix the flour and milk powder together, slowly add the water and mix untill you get a doughy mixture, flour a round tin, put the dough in cover with another tin and add to hot coals, size determines cooking times. normally an hour give or take

you can make this savory or sweet add what you like from herbs to fruit, blue berries are nice in this

[MikeWilkinson]

Other than the bread recipie at the start these are pretty much all variations of a bannock - and thats the beauty of Bannock, so many different ways of making it.

I keep my basic Bannock recipie simple and then adjust it with whatever I can forage.

1 x cup of flour
1 x heaped teaspoon of baking powder
1 x pinch of salt
1 x table spoon of sugar.

Make it really runny to use as a pancake mix, make is fairly soft for a fry bread or Naan (flat bread), make it a little thicker for Skillet biscuits and make it a good thick dough (with plenty of kneading) to use as a bake loaf or for grilling. You can also use the biscuit consitency to make a dumpling for you stews.

Great thing is you can making a load of the dry mix in a bag as it keeps for ages. Roll the bag down when you want to use it, create a well, add water and use a green stick or your finger to stir in the mix from the edge of the well and when it is at the right consistency lift out to cook (except for pancake mix). Then just seal the bag and use again next time.

Add more or less sugar depending on your tastes.

A few of my favourite variants:-
Ramson bannock - using flowers and leaves.
Bilberry bannock - Add a handful of Bilberries and turn it into a purple scone!
Bittercress and chive dumplings

[Silverback]

ciabatta flour, water, and loads of olive oil and make a fried flatbread cooked in a shallow dish over a hot fire

[Mountain Goat]

In Ireland we have a thing called wheaten bread, soda bread, or just brown bread which is pretty amaing. I've not doneiton a campfire yet but recipe is as follows
Few cups wholemeal (wheaten) flour
Buttermilk
Tspn salt
Tspn sugar
Tspn bicarbonate of soda (hence 'soda bread')
Mix dry stuff, add enough buttermilk to make moist dough, stick in tins and bake for 45 min at 220 degrees
Not sure how baking time will translate for a campfire
Eat as fresh as possible ithout burning your mouth. Its popular enough to pretty much be the staple bread in my house.