Bannock / fry bread / voyageur bread...

[Homesteader]

I've been looking for a very simple campfire bread recipe of the sort that may have actually been used in the mid to late 1700's. Everything I find includes baking powder. I've read that wasn't even developed until the mid 1800's!

Anyone have a very simple recipe that a voyageur or the like might have used to cook up some basic bread? You know, the wrap-around-a-stick type? (Variations of this would be great, too. I'm looking to introduce a couple of my nephews to primitive fire making and cooking.)

Thanks much!

 

[the11]

Before the invention of chemical leavening agents like pearl-ash, bread was only leavened with yeast (unless you consider the practice of using stiffly beaten egg whites as leavening), or it was left unleavened.

If you leave dough long enough, it will leaven on it's own from the yeast in the air (sourdough). Or you can keep back sourdough to start the next batch.

Roman soldiers sometimes were issued beer, in part to leaven their bread. The beer was drunk, and the yeasty dregs put in the dough. This would rise fairly quickly (1-3 hours depending on the temperature outside).

But for campfire bread, unleavened was the easiest. Mix flour and a bit of salt (like, .5 teaspoons per cup), and then mix water and knead. Pat, pound, or roll it into a thin flat disk, and bake it on a hot flat rock, flipping it once. If everything works right, and the rock is hot enough, the water in the dough will turn to steam, and the disk will puff up, sort of like a pita, but not as much due to the lack of yeast.

In any case, it is real tasty when fresh. You can wrap some meat up in it, sop up your beans or stew with it, or eat it plain. What you don't eat can be dried for tomorrow.

Wrapping dough around a stick only really works when there is a leavening agent in the dough. The key to unleavened bread is to make it thin.

Oh yeah: You can also add a bit of fat to the mix if you like. But I prefer not to as it takes away a bit of the chewiness. You can also add sweetening if you have it. I suppose they found an occasional bee tree back in the day.

 

[Homesteader]

Exactly the sort of info I was looking for. Thank you sir! :hatsoff:

 

[the11]

Well, I ain't done yet. :grin:

Another kind of unleavened flatbread used especially in the southwest was the humble tortilla, and nothing could be easier. Go and buy some masa harina (the brand name we find up here is called maseca). Mix with a pinch of salt, and water, press or pat them in the appropriate shape (again, think thin), and cook them on a fry pan, VERY hot flat rock, or any unsuspecting flat piece of steel.

A note on getting a rock hot enough to do flatbread over a fire: It is not enough to just have it beside the fire. You pretty well have to have it in the fire, and let it get REALLY hot. Then just sweep the ashes off the top and make your bread. If you are making bannock with baking powder, the buns will bake just fine on a rock at the edge of your fire.

Another thing I have heard about is a cornmeal bread made by the reb soldiers in the Civil War. (I have never tried this, but I intend to). First you fry bacon, and then remove it from the pan. Then you stir cornmeal into the grease until it is well mixed. Then you add water, and let it cook into a dough. The you wrap it around your (presumably steel) ramrod and roast it over the fire. They had a name for this concoction, but it escapes me at the moment. It is mentioned in the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War. Anyone here remember what this was called?

 

[sparky911]

I have been making a modern style fry bread using the same dough recipe for biscuits only adding a little more buttermilk so the mixture is too wet for biscuits.
I put about 8th inch grease in the pan and spoon it in trying to keep it less than 3/4 inch thick

it pops up nice and makes great bread to eat with a big pot of stew or beans

 

[the11]

I bet it would also be good if instead of an 8th of an inch of grease, you put it in 8 INCHES of grease. :thumbsup:

 

[sparky911]

well.....maybe

 

[the11]

Actually, apparently it is. My wife was at Fort Edmonton Park on a field trip not long ago (she drives a school bus) and there was a native woman there making deep fried raisin bannock. She had some and said that it was amazing.

 

[sparky911]

I know if you go to county fairs, they are deep frying everything now from Snickers bars to twinkies

 

[mazo kid]

Simple? Flour, water, maybe a pinch of salt. Make a dough about 1/4" to 1/2" thick, cut into 2"-3" squares. Use a fork or other utensil to prick holes into the square from one side, then cook over coals in what ever pan or griddle you have. This is the hard tack, ships bread, etc. It will keep a long time and is quite hard, best used as dipped in soup, coffee, etc. Quick and simple.