How to Make Wild Bannock Bread
When on the trail, be it in Britain or abroad I like to carry the following ingredients with me to make what I call a Wild bread. Bannock originates from Scotland and was made with oats, flour, salt, and water but over time other ingredients have been added to the delight of our taste buds! This bread is particularly fun to make as a family.
The ingredients can be measured out at home and then carried easily, all in one large plastic ziplock bag. This is very convenient for adding seasonal foods like nuts and berries discovered on the trail. I never weigh ingredients, but measure out with a camping utensil. In this case my old metal mug!
You will need:
- 3 old metal mugs of flour
- 2 old metal mugs of milk powder
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 old metal mug of water
- + nuts/berries/etc
- Olive oil.
- One large pan/cooking pot.
Method:
- Firstly get a good campfire established, ideally a bed of hot embers with no flame.
- Put a little olive oil in your frying pan/cooking pot and place on the embers to heat up.
- Add a cup of water to your dry ingredients and mix well together. (Being in a ziplock bag saves you having to carry a mixing bowl.)
- Add your seasonal fruits/nuts/berries. (June is the best month to find the sweetest wild strawberries along the woodland path).
- Once everything is mixed together, flatten the dumpling-like creation and place on the hot oil. (I find that it is important that the thickness of the bread is an inch and no more: anything thicker and it will end up being uncooked inside and very burnt on the outside.)
- Fry the bread for about 7 minutes on each side until golden.
- Once cooked, break the bread with your hands, but watch out as the bread will be very hot.
- And finally, don't be tempted to use a knife to cut the bread as this will bring bad luck!
Happy eating!
Annette Stickler enjoys outdoor cooking, greenwood carving, researching and experimenting with natural materials and making forgotten primitive artifacts. She runs Campfire Skills, running bushcraft courses in Hampshire.
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Discussion
Just made our first bannock (in the kitchen) great taste, can’t wait to try in the outdoors with some herbs
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Yo bruv this bread is bare sick bruv
Obama 09
I made this on my trip to thriftwood campsite and it was delicious.
Use with syrup
Liked the recipe, very versatile. Add chopped dried fruit (try those matchbox sized kids lunchbox fruits) to make a sort of cake bannock, or oatmeal to make a flapjack bannock (try oat-so-simple golden syrup, or blackberry and apple), spice it to make a naan bread bannock. Broken it makes good dumplings or can be used to wipe up the juices of a stew. Ingredients very light so easily carried in a rucksac. Good camping cooking basic. Recommended!
I made this in the kitchen after watching Ray Mears on TV (great programs). The main thing is, this is basically flour & water — I’ve seen young scouts mix this paste & wrap it round shaved sticks to cook over embers, smells & tastes great.
Once you got flour & water, you can experiment with the other ingredients however you see fit. Salt, bicarb, baking powder, sugar. I found sultanas, a few chopped nuts mixed in with some maple syrup & brandy on top made this simple dish a sublime luxury. Honey would probably be good too.
Alternatively, how about using it like a pizza base and adding savoury ingredients: cheese, olives, fish (anchovies, sardines, etc.), tomato,…
I made some this weekend ! self raising flour and a pinch of baking soda! added water till it became doughy and then added some blackberries. chucked it in a pan of melted butter and turned it over when it was done on one side! tasted brilliant you realy cant go wrong! I will definatley be eating it again thanks !
plain or self raising tried it and it was heavy maybe i used the wrong flour……………….cheers
Hi Nettie, nice recipe! i will give it a go soon…
Danny
This seems to be a very tasty recipe. I am going to try it out and cook out doors. Fire pits are a great equipment for doing so. If you guys need one, you should check this site, it has some great information on fire pits available for both indoors and outdoors. And yep, its pretty safe as well.
Try adding dried herbs,it reaaly does make a difference to the taste or some ransomes
I like your style of measuring quantities…
I am going to try this recipe it sounds good. and i lve trying something new
What happened to the oats??
Paul
26 April, 2023