Bannock bread

I used my vacation to try out some different coking techniques.  I wanted to try varying ways to cook over an open fire.

We used several different techniques. 

I recently read about making Bannock.  Bannock is a type of bread that has been around for a long time and used by trappers and explorers for a long time. 

As you can see from the pictures, I have cooked it on a stick and have deep-fried it.  I cheated with the deep-frying, I used a deep fryer, but you could just as easy use a Dutch oven. 

I first tried cooking bannock on a green stick about 1” thick, use a green ranch so it won’t burn.  Make sure you pick one from a tree that is not poisonous.  Mountain laurel would not be a good choice.

Turning occasionally over the heat source.  Here are a couple of recipes.

You want the dough to be sticky, so it stays on the stick better.

Recipe for the cooking on a stick

1 – cup of flour  (regular, wheat or bread flour)

1 – teaspoon baking powder

¼  - teaspoon of salt

3 – tablespoon of butter

2 – tablespoon milk powder

mix  everything together thoroughly, slowly add water until it makes a dough ball.  To put it on the stick, you roll it out like a hot dog size, then wrap it around the stick.  Hold it near the fire or flames it will bake.

This is the bannock with cinnamon and a icing.  It was very good.

The icing we used was made of; powdered sugar, vanilla extract and whole milk.

We also cooked the bannock, fried in oil.

They made a reasonable substitute for biscuits; these are with butter and jelly.  We topped them with butter and jelly and the cinnamon and icing.

The recipe for the fried bannock we used was

4 cups of flour

2 tablespoons of baking powder

2 tablespoons of sugar

½ can of evaporated milk

water

¼ cup of butter

2 eggs

¼ tablespoon of salt

The only problems we had were, making sure we cooked them enough.  A few of the times we cooked them the center was still a little doughy.  That is not a problem, just a little trial and error.

You could use a lot of different things, like pigs in a blanket, rolls and bread substitute.

One recipe said that you could place cheese in the center and make a cheese muffin.

Why worry with it?  Well bread is a nutritious staple, and what were you going to do with all that wheat you have stored in the basement?

Remember the rule of three’s, have three different ways (or more) of doing anything.

A few final thoughts, you want to eat them while they arem hot or warm at the very least.  They can be eatten cold, but warm they are better.