Camp Bread

Camp bread is a wonderful thing. Nothing produces
a feeling of hominess as much as fresh made bread. The
amazing thing, given the diversity of breads that can
be baked in camp,is how few campers do so anymore. Breads
can be as simple as hoecakes, or as complex as
yeast-risen loaves. And it may take a few tries to get
the knack. But to really top off camp meals, give
campfire breads a try.

Bread is truly the staff of life. No matter how primitive or sophisticated the society, you’ll find bread in one form or another.

We tend to think of bread as being baked in an oven. But the fact is, worldwide there are more breads prepared without an oven than with one.

In North America the basic camp bread is Bannock. Evolved from the Scotch oatcakes of the same name, Bannock can be baked in an oven, made over the fire in a skillet, or, as every Boy Scout knows, even wound on a stick and “baked” directly over the fire.

The most usual method for preparing this camp bread is to press the dough into a greased skillet. Cook that over the fire until a crust forms on the bottom, then turn it over. Prop the skillet at a sharp angle in front of the fire, exposing the top to the heat, and continue cooking until golden brown on top and the dough tests done.

Ask twenty people how they make Bannock and you’ll get 20 different recipes. Among my favorites, though, is one adapted from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s great book, Flatbreads & Flavors. They call it:

Berry Bannock

3 cups unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbls baking powder
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 ½ cups water

Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder until thoroughly blended. Add the berries and stir to mix. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, pour in the water, and stir quickly to mix. The dough should be fairly stiff but even moistened.

Transfer dough to a 9 or 10 inch cast-iron skillet and press down to form an even layer
.
Bake in the center of a pre-heated 425F oven, or over the fire as outlined above. Total cooking time should be about 25 minutes.

Skillet breads of all sorts abound. When we visited Swedish Lapland several years ago we learned a version that goes back several hundred years. Woodcutters would carry flour and salt during the time in the forest. At lunchtime they’d mix up a batter and pour it over cubed, browned salt pork to make a filling pancake. A savory camp bread with added protein. Here’s a modernized version of

Kolbulle
(charcoal buns)

Milk
Flour
Eggs (one per person)
Salt
Salt pork

Dice and fry the salt pork. If necessary melt in additional butter.

Combine the flour, salt, milk and eggs to make a thin batter. Pour batter over salt pork and cook until browned on bottom. Flip and continue cooking until batter is cooked through.

Corn-based pancakes date back to colonial days. Call ‘em hoe cakes, journey cakes, Johnny cakes, or what have you, what they share in common is that they’re baked on a hot iron surface rather than in an oven. A perfect method of camp bread cooking, of course.

Pumpkin was often added to the batter by early settlers, both for additional flavor and to stretch supplies of cornmeal. Here’s an adaptation of

Colonial Pumpkin Corn Cakes

1 cup cornmeal
½ cup flour
1 cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup honey
1 tbls baking powder
1 egg
Small can evaporated milk

Mix dry ingredients. Add the egg, honey, pumpkin, and enough of the milk to form a medium-thick batter.

Drop by large spoonsfull (about two heaping tablespoons) onto a hot, greased griddle or skillet. Cook, turning once, about five minutes per side.

When camp bread comes to mind, cornbread surely follows. Cornbread is a mainstay of camp cooking. Nobody has ever counted all the versions, but there must be several hundred of them. My favorite came from a small country café in Cumberland, Kentucky, where the cook got the recipe from her mother, Leonda. You can make it as the recipe stands, or add a half-cup or so of pork cracklings which makes it even better:

Leonda’s Cornbread

1 ¼ cup each self-rising cornmeal and self-rising flour
1 ¼ cup buttermilk\
1 ¼ cup water
Pinch salt
Oil

Mix dry ingredients. Combine the buttermilk and water and gradually add to the flour mix to form a thick batter.

Add a film of oil to a cast-iron skillet and pre-heat it in a 400F oven.

Pour the batter into the hot skillet and bake for one hour. You may have to turn the bread, once, to keep it from browning too much on the bottom.

To cook in a Dutch oven, use a metal cake pan on a trivet instead of the skillet, and increase the baking time as necessary.

The first deer-hunting group I belonged to had a cabin in New York’s Catskill Mountains, with a two-burner range and a small oven. One of the hunters could do some incredible things with that primitive stove, including a form of camp bread that I had never imagined. Try these:

Sweet Potato Buns

2 pkg active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar, divided
½ cup warm water
½ cup cooked sweet potatoes, mashed
3 tbls butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
¾ tsp cinnamon
3 ¾-4 ½ cups all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon of the sugar in the warm water. Let sit five minutes to bloom. Add the remaining sugar, sweet potato, butter, eggs, salt, cinnamon, and half the flour. Beat well until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead ten minutes, adding more flour if necessary. Put dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning to coat evenly. Cover with plastic film and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour.

Punch dough down; let rest five minutes. Shape into 1 ½ inch balls and place two inches apart on greased baking sheets. Cover with greased plastic film and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Bake at 350F for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Alternatively, place buns on greased, straight-walled metal cake pans and bake on a trivet in a Dutch oven.

For more coverage of camp cooking, including camp bread and other easy camping recipes, visit our friends at Cheftalk.