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 […]
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.
It is conventionally believed that Scottish fur traders called Selkirk settlers introduced bannock to the Indigenous peoples of North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. (See also Fur Trade in Canada.) The Scots cooked it in a griddle called a bannock stone, which they placed on the floor before a fire.
Just prepare the mix ahead of time and you are ready to go. Great for a snack or breakfast. …slowly into the bag filled with your pre-made bannock mix. Seal the bag and knead the bag until dry ingredients are wet.
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. Place it on a baking tray, then take a fork and start poking holes in the flat kneaded dough.
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.
bannock is the best thing since sliced bread… because it's sliced bread but waaay better. For those who aren't in the know, fry bread and bannock are traditional Indigenous breads that are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. And let me tell you, they're like a warm hug for your taste buds.
In Scotland, before the 19th century, bannocks were cooked on a bannock stane (Scots for stone), a large, flat, rounded piece of sandstone, placed directly onto a fire, used as a cooking surface. Most modern bannocks are made with baking powder or baking soda as a leavening agent, giving them a light and airy texture.
The “Five White Gifts” — flour, sugar, salt, milk and lard — are ingredients that are full of historic injustices and ongoing colonial legacies. These five foods were given out in ration boxes by the government of Canada during the 1940s to Indigenous families living on reserves.
Bannock, skaan (or scone), Indian bread, alatiq, or frybread is found throughout North-American Native cuisine, including that of the Inuit of Canada and Alaska, other Alaska Natives, the First Nations of the rest of Canada, the Native Americans in the United States, and the Métis.
It will rise and be about 4 cm (11/2 inches) thick when done. Enjoy with stews or as a sandwich. Store in a plastic bag or closed container. Will keep two to three days at room temperature or five days in the fridge.
The longer the dough ferments the more chance of bacteria and enzymes getting to work and unlocking the flavours in the wheat. Slowing fermentation down by using the fridge helps to give the dough time to develop more complex flavours without over proving, as it would at room temperature.
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.
Introduction: My name is Velia Krajcik, I am a handsome, clean, lucky, gleaming, magnificent, proud, glorious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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