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…
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 […]
Bannock is usually unleavened, oval-shaped and flat. The version that we know today came from Scotland. In its most rudimentary form, it is made of flour, water, and fat or lard. Milk, salt, and sugar are often added, depending on the recipe.
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 a type of fry bread, which originates from Scotland but was eventually adopted by the Indigenous peoples of Canada, particularly the Métis of western Canada. Bannock stems from the Gaelic word bannach, which means “morsel,” a short and sweet but accurate description.
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.
The name Bannock seems to originate from the Old Celtic English “bannuc”, derived from the Latin “panicium” for “bread” or meaning “anything baked”. Made simply from oatmeal and flour, the first citing of a bannock or bannuc recipe in Scotland was in the 8th Century.
Bannock, North American Indian tribe that lived in what is now southern Idaho, especially along the Snake River and its tributaries, and joined with the Shoshone tribe in the second half of the 19th century.
Classic bannock has a smoky, almost nutty flavour blended with a buttery taste, while dessert bannock can have flavours resembling a donut or shortbread. Making bannock is an art that takes years to perfect.
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.
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.
Selkirk bannock is made from wheat flour and contains fruit. The word bannock derives from the Latin panicum, denoting an edible milletlike grain. Special bannocks were once made for holidays and religious feasts, such as Beltane bannocks on the first of May and Lammas bannocks on the first day of autumn.
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. Just like a scone, Bannock is rather versatile.
It is believed that bannock, derived from the Gaelic word bannach, was introduced here by the Scottish fur traders. Most Indigenous groups in Canada have some version of bannock. The Inuit call it palauga, the Mi'kmaq, luskinikn, and the Ojibwa, ba'wezhiganag (Colombo, 2006). The Métis call bannock la galette.
If your bread is especially hard, brush the outside with water before wrapping it. Then, heat it on the center rack of your oven for about 30 minutes for a whole loaf; or 15 to 20 minutes for a partial loaf, or if you have a long, skinny loaf like a baguette.
The overworked dough will often feel tight and tough. This means that liquid molecules have been damaged and won't stretch properly, causing the bread to break and tear more easily. Conversely, a dough that is underworked will be harder to form into a ball shape.
If your dough is slightly hard and not dry, you can try to soften it by kneading the dough between your fingers or rolling it between your hands (clean of course, to avoid mixing dust or dirt with the dough).
The Bannock have traditionally made pottery, utensils from bighorn sheep horns, and carrying bags from salmon skin. Their petroglyphs date back before European contact, and, after the introduction of glass beads, they transferred their geometric design to beadwork. For water transport, they have made tule reed rafts.
Although the Scottish word “skonn” can be traced as an original term, another earlier etamology can be traced from the Middle English “schoonbrot” meaning “round cake”. Oddly, in Scotland, a scone is called a bannock. This can be confusing because in Ireland, the word “bannock” refers to a flat round loaf of bread.
My iPad dictionary App defines scone as a “thin flat quick bread made of oatmeal, wheat flour, barley meal, or the like” and bannock as a “thick flat quick bread made of oatmeal, wheat flour, barley meal, or the like”. The only difference is in the words thin and thick.
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