Most things just taste better cooked over an open fire or that perfect bed of coals – Bannock is one of them. I have fond childhood memories of mixing bannock in a camp cook-set pot until it was the perfect consistency, then carefully winding it around an appropriate stick, and finally buttering and eating it. I suspect that more often than not it was still raw in the center, but after a day in the glorious outdoors that didn’t seem to matter.
Bannock Recipe
This Bannock recipe is simple and the results are tasty as either a savory or sweet campfire bread. It can be wrapped around a stick or fried in a cast iron pan. We used the recipe to make a ‘pocket dog’ using homemade venison sausage as the meat. The meal was finished off with peanut butter and jelly in piping hot bannock.
Ingredients
Makes 5-6 large stick-bannocks
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/4 cups water
Mixing
Mix all of the ingredients together. Add approximately 1 cup of water first and slowly add the remainder until it is just firm enough to form on a stick. The bannock batter can be less firm if cooking in a frying pan.
Cooking
Stick Method – Spoon up a mid-sized handful of batter. Use lots of flour to keep from sticking to hands while patting it flat and shaping it onto stick. Make sure the edges are well incorporated into each other, or they will separate while baking. Cook 7-10 min over coals until golden brown. Rotate continually to encourage even baking and prevent burning.
Cast Iron Frying Pan Method – put a few heaping tablespoonfuls of batter in greased frying pan (similar to making a pancake). After it has cooked for a few minutes lift the edge with a flipper to ensure it is not burning. Turn when bottom is golden. Remove from heat once both sides are cooked to your liking.
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Lowell Strauss is an outdoor writer and photographer. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada, and blogs about hunting, shooting, and everything outdoors.
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Reader Interactions
Comments
Judy Portersays
We have been making bread on a stick for several years, but never knew about your recipe. We used refrigerator buttermilk biscuits in a can. After roasting the bread we put in butter, cinnamon, & cream cheese frosting. Best homemade cinnamon roll!
Reply
Davesays
So we’re at our local farmer’s market today (Aug. 5, 2018) and come across bannock reminding my fiancé of her childhood. Knowing how I love to cook she asks me if I would make it for her. No problem, I said, not knowing what I’m getting into I jumped on the google machine and came across your recipe for campfire baked on a stick bannock pocket dog bun. Being avid campers I thought this IS the perfect idea! You asked what we would fill it with and immediately two thoughts leaped out: shepherd’s pie and I am working on a Yak meatloaf recipe…
Reply
Lowell Strausssays
Yak! Now that’s different…I’ve never tried that protein before!
Reply
Art Thomassays
Hello Lowell, Your bannock recipe is accurate, as I learned about 55 years ago. I enjoy it with jam and/or peanut butter, etc. At that time, we were told to pass around a sealer jar of milk to shake and shake and shake; then pass to the next person to shake, etc… until the milk turned to butter. Apparently, this was the original way to make butter for bannock, and was done after the evening milking of your cow(s.) I did this procedure once only, as my parents had an ice box, so we had butter ready to go.
Reply
pattysays
my favorite filling when I made them was jam (strawberry) or have it on weiners
Reply
Lowellsays
Thanks for sharing your favorites Patty. It’s a versatile food – sweet or savory. Delicious anyway you serve it!
Reply
Trackbacks
[…] read earlier about cooking breadsticks over a campfire, so had made up a ziploc of dry mix at home and added the liquids at the campsite. They were tricky […]
There are many versions of bannock and different nations make more than one version. Bannock can be baked in a pan or on a stone (camping), shallow pan-fried, or deep-fried.
Bannock is not to be confused with Australian Damper. Bannock refers to any large round article baked or cooked from grain, whereas damper, is traditionally baked or cooked from wheat flour and water. Bannock was taken to North America and Canada by the Scottish explorers and fur traders.
My first piece of advice when looking to bake over a campfire is to work with a hot fire. If you're making bread or a cake, it's important to generate a good deal of heat for long enough to bake your goodies.
Any cookware you use will be safe and sturdy for even baking with your item right on the fire pit grate. Mix up your favorite baking recipe, then just put it on the grate over the fire. The goal while you are baking is to make sure that the heat of the fire is evenly consistent.
Bannock, a round of mostly flour, baking powder, water and some sort of fat, has been a part of Indigenous peoples' diets since the 18th century. It is believed that bannock, derived from the Gaelic word bannach, was introduced here by the Scottish fur traders.
This is the part where you don't want to knead the dough too much because if you do… your bannock will become real hard. So make sure that you knead the dough only about 3-4 times, it should not take too long to do. Place it on a baking tray, then take a fork and start poking holes in the flat kneaded dough.
Your dough can become sticky when you add too much water or the flour isn't suitable for the type of dough you are making. Over proofing or fermenting the dough can also result in the gluten structure weakening causing sticky dough.
Don't over mix the dough or you'll end up with dense tough bannock, less handling you get lighter fluffier bannock. Place on a floured surface and flatten out with your hands, (don't use a rolling pin) cut circles out with cookie cutter or glass.
Now that's commitment to the Scottish baked products. Bannock is essentially a giant scone. The texture is pretty much the same. Except before you bake it you assign some grooves to it and then you cut it all up to eat with your spreads of choice.
Aluminum foil doesn't catch on fire in an oven, on the grill or even in a campfire. It can burn, however — though sparklers actually use aluminum as their fuel.
Unlike a home Dutch oven, which has a flat bottom and sealed in enamel, a camping Dutch oven is made entirely from cast iron, has support legs on the bottom, and comes with a flat flanged lid. Coals or embers can be placed underneath and on top of the lid, allowing you to heat from both sides.
To bake bread over a campfire, you'll need a Dutch oven and a campfire.Once you have your ingredients mixed together, place the dough in the Dutch oven and place the Dutch oven over the campfire. Make sure you use enough briquettes to keep the heat consistent.
Leavened bread is typically baked in some form of oven, but other options include a damper or stick-bread. Unleavened bread is usually cooked against the source of the heat, in a large pan or even directly on or within the fire.
There are three different methods for mixing the ingredients for yeast breads: The Straight Dough Method, The Modified Straight Dough Method, and The Sponge Method. The straight dough method is the easiest of all of the bread mixing methods.
Three common mixing methods are the muffin mixing method, the creaming method and the biscuit mixing method. The muffin method suits muffins, loaf breads, pancakes, and waffles. Biscuits and scones benefit from the biscuit method, while the creaming method offers an alternative for muffins and certain bread types.
The rest of the year the Bannock lived in dome-shaped houses covered with grass. In the summer they fished for salmon, and in the spring they gathered seeds and roots. The root of the camas plant was an important food for the tribe.
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Most things just taste better cooked over an open fire or that perfect bed of coals – Bannock is one of them. I have fond childhood memories of mixing bannock in a camp cook-set pot until it was the perfect consistency, then carefully winding it around an appropriate stick, and finally buttering and eating it. I suspect that more often than not it was still raw in the center, but after a day in the glorious outdoors that didn’t seem to matter.
Judy Porter says
