On bannock

[TheIndian]

Made some today for the first time (at home) and it came out pretty good. Of course there are many ways to make it according to one's preferences but I trying to figure out if it worth bringing/making in the first place. If you out for a 3-5 day trip in Fall/Winter/Spring do you bother? I get the impression it a more practical dish to make if one out for longer periods of time (weeks) since the basic ingredients flour, salt and b.s. (that's baking soda) won't go bad. Hey, if you like it, you like it...go ahead and make it but it seems to me there are less messes to be made with other foods. Ideally I only like to travel with a pot for boiling water only and a skillet for everything else. Your thoughts on simple prep/cleanup appreciated.

 

[Alan Gage]

Bring it on a 3-5 day trip? Hells ya!

I love bannock. I eat it for lunch nearly every day when tripping, usually with peanut butter. Sometimes I'll have it for breakfast and sometimes I'll cook a small one to eat as a side with dinner. If I didn't cook bannock I wouldn't have any need to bring a skillet but it's worth it to me. I use an 8" aluminum skillet with heavy(ish) bottom. Weighs about a pound if I remember right.

Cooking bannock isn't messy at all. Mix it with water in the skillet you're going to cook it in. Use a stick you found to do the actual mixing. When you've mixed it to the right consistency it will be a little sticky and clean the loose bits off the pan as you roll it around. Now sprinkle the ball of bannock, and the bottom of the skillet, with a little more bannock mix. This lets you press it flat without it sticking to your hands. Make sure it's coated top and bottom with flour.

Now remove that flattened piece of bannock from the pan and set it on the zip-lock you keep the bannock mix in. Add some oil to the pan and put it over the fire. Throw the mixing stick in the fire too. Once it's hot put the bannock back in the skillet and proceed to cook it to perfection. A light film of dough might have stuck to your fingers in the process but it will roll right off when you rub your hands together.

If you cook it with a lot of oil (yummy) the pan will be a little greasy when done. I don't bother washing it with soap so there's often still some oil residue on the pan when it goes back in the stuff sack. That's ok. It just means next time you use the skillet you'll have the brush off some bits of detritus that have stuck to the pan. If you use just a little bit of oil when cooking the pan will be nearly dry when done.

On the topic of cleaning oil from a pan: on a recent trip I found that a handful of dead leaves does an excellent job of cleaning an oily skillet.

Most people like to cook a big bannock that will last for multiple days. I don't do this. I like it hot and fresh out of the skillet. Stopping for a shore lunch is one of my favorite parts of the day and starting a fire to cook bannock is part of that.

I also like my bannock mix to have some whole fat powdered milk and sugar mixed in with it too. Some people have said it isn't technically bannock anymore, and maybe they're right, but I don't care because whatever it is it's delicious.

If you think it tastes good at home wait until you try it in the middle of a trip cooked over a fire.

Alan

 

[yknpdlr]

I make it for the breakfast graduation at the end of an 8-day annual wilderness guide training course I staff at Lows Lake. Best served with maple syrup and/or honey and jam, with a side of corn meal mush and beans.

 

[Jim Dodd]

I took bannock fixens along for the first time last Fall, in the BWCA. I'll be taking it on every trip from now on !

I practiced at home the Winter before. Gained 5#.

It's easy to share. Honey makes it soo good. Oh, and Cinnamon.

Alan put me on to it, and I blame him for the extra pounds I carry, above my waistline !

I use Olive oil, and in the morning, make enough extra bannock, to take along paddling, the rest of the day.

Jim

 

[sweeper]

I've been saving my bacon fat for my bannock this summer.

 

[Odyssey]

All it takes is a skillet and your hands. Leave the mixing paraphernalia and kitchen gadgetry at home. I too like mine freshly baked. A little fluffy, a little dense, and the right proportion of dried fruit makes this an ideal breakfast or trailside snack. I don't make it every day, and never plan to have any left over past lunch. Not much of a sweet tooth, so just dried fruit suits me fine.
Raisins, cherries, blueberries. Add dry whole milk and a dash of sugar into the dry mix at home.
I use a nonstick pan, maybe with a drop of oil to be sure, and medium low heat.

 

[wgiles]

Whether it's called Bannock, Pan de Campo or Austalian Damper, it's all good and there are many ways to make it. I don't care to mix it in a zipper bag, so I think that I will go for mixing it in the pan that I'm going to cook it in. I usually add dried milk to the mix.

http://www.texascooking.com/features/nov2005_pan_de_campo.htm

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/16726/australian-damper/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damper_(food)

 

[yknpdlr]

Mix white flour, whole wheat flour, oat flour, corn meal, sugar (half white, half brown), baking powder, salt, dry whole milk powder (NIdo brand), cinnamon, and shortening (Crisco). Mix well dry and bag. Make a stiff dough with water. Pinch a golf ball size lump, flatten very thin by hand. Cook in a hot pan with a squirt of liquid margarine until golden brown and delicious. Top with honey to serve.

 

[frozentripper]

Here's Sigurd Olson's recipe... in The Lonely Land he writes about using "prepared biscuit mix" which may have been Bisquick.

Three or four cups of flour, a good pinch of salt, a few tablespoons of bacon grease, a level teaspoon of baking powder, enough warm water to make dough. Kneed the dough well, turning it over and over until all the ingredients are well mixed and the dough of even consistency. Use only enough water to make a rather dry dough. Too much water and it is spoiled.

Then, depending on the size of your frying pan, cut off enough of the dough to pat into a well-greased pan, making the bannock at this stage not more than half an inch in thickness. Have it fill the pan.

Now it is ready for the baking. You can start it over a low flame very gently so as not to burn, but it is better to do as the Indians and Old Timers—prop your pan beside the fire so it will get the heat and bake from the top. After the top is done, you can turn it and brown the other side. It usually takes about twenty minutes. The secret is a slow, even heat.

After it is done you can rub it with more bacon grease to make a nice juicy crust. Many like to add some fruit to the bannock, raisins, any chopped fruit, dried, or anything you can pick in season. It does something.

This is the bread of the north and worth working at.

 

[Odyssey]

I guess it's true, "...there's nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9) So many cultural versions of the same basic bread. Never heard of Damper, or Pan De Campo, thanks wgiles! I like the sound of yours yknplr. It would go well with coffee methinks.
I practically let out a whoop!! when I found Nido in a store the other day. Though the dry buttermilk powder does well in bannock also. Soured milk (adding lemon juice into milk if you don't have buttermilk) for making scones (a cousin of bannock) provides some leavening I'm told, and is a tradition in our household. I remember once as a kid seeing an unattended glass of milk on the kitchen counter, and thought it would go well with the cookie I had in my hand. Not only did I catch trouble from my mom but my stomach wasn't well pleased either.

 

[wgiles]

My own personal preference is Navajo Fry Bread. Same basic mix, but kneaded a lot and fried in very hot oil. I like it, but I'm not willing to carry the oil to cook it in. If I was frying fish, I might feel differently.

 

[Iskweo]

Ok folks, we are in the presence of a master bannockeer...our very own Odyssey Brad. I have had lots of different bannock made by all sorts of people and Brads is the bomb. The raisin one was super good, I think I ate most of it.

His most notable batch incuded hot peppers grown by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum. Those of us who have been down similar roads before steered clear.

A popular gift on the Rez was a bannock net. A small net with weights around the outside to keep your bannock from floating away. Cough cough.

 

[Odyssey]

Iskweo
I humbly think the sisters who talked and sang to Miranda at the waterfall might have blessed me for the remainder of the trip too.
I probably have them to thank for getting lucky with the bannock. No joke.
apijigo megwiich

 

[Canotrouge]

We do bannik(french name)pretty much on every trip in every season. It is part of our tripping diet. We make a real simple one, the one usually made up here from the first nation people, that is what we ended up liking the best after the years of trying many different recipes. Flour, salt and baking powder that's it...

We do it on the wood stove in the winter, on the fire in the summer either in the reflector oven or on the grill!!

Eat with anything you feel like, butter, peanut butter, jams, maple sirup, cheese, meat etc etc...

 

[Boatman53]

I made a batch every day last year and was only out for four days. I brought along dehydrated blue berries that I soaked before use.
Jim

 

[DuctTape]

I have mentioned this on other threads, and this thread is also apropos. I have switched from basic bannock using chemical leavining to making quick yeast pan bread. I modified an english muffin recipe and it works great. Rising time is only 20 minutes, perfect for doing another camp chore. I still do basic bannock on occasion just not very often.

 

[DuctTape]

Here is my english muffin recipe.

2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered milk
1Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup hot water
1 envelope yeast

Mix first four dry ingredients. Bloom the yeast in the hot water. Mix dry and wet together. Let proof for 30 minutes (will about double in size). Makes a very soft dough, somewhat sticky. Use just enough flour to shape and to keep surface from being sticky. Shape into flattened loaf and cook in a skillet dusted with cornmeal. Will puff up much more in pan while cooking. Flip, and cook other side.

 

[yknpdlr]

I have a sourdough "mother" that I have kept constantly alive for almost 6 years so far. Mostly I use it to make Guinness sourdough bread, but have not explored using it for bannock, not yet. Maybe I will try, but typically sourdough requires a very long rise time.

 

[DuctTape]

Sourdough uses natural yeast which isnt as prolific as the fast acting. It takes longer to multiply, and ingest. The fermentation process gives the sourdough the great flavor. Using a whole packet of fast acting in a small recipe also aids in speeding things up but loses out on the flavor from a true fermentation although there is still a good yeast flavor.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I've never eaten anything called bannock nor seen anyone make it on a canoe trip or anywhere else.

My maternal grandfather was a German baker and my father's side was Scottish. I lived with both as a boy. I've eaten things called scones, biscuits, muffins, flat bread, fried dough and various other dough concoctions. But never "bannock".

From what I can tell from canoe forums, there's no general agreement on all the exact ingredients or condiments for bannock nor how exactly to prepare this breadstuff.

Hence, I deny there is some precise thing known as bannock. I think some people just like to fry or bake up various dough creations that suit their palate while camping, whereas others don't want to bother or just bring bread.