Campfire Bread

Campfire Bread

When my family was young we loved spending a holiday camping rough.

One recipe I developed to bring with us to the campsite is this version of the same bread that I would make for us at home.

To make it at your campsite, you need to pack the following ingredients:

Toppings:

• Cinnamon
• Brown Sugar
• Butter
• Soft Raisins

Supplies:

• Fry Pan
• Giant Big Bowl with a sealable lid of some sort
• Wire Whisk
• Strong Wooden Spoon
• Wooden Fire Poking Sticks
• A clean cotton tea towel
• Stainless Steel Spatula for flipping bread while it is in the pan on the fire
• Cutting Board and Bread Knife
• Oven Mitt

Bread:

• 1/3 cup Soft, Real Honey – confirm it is locally collected so it doesn’t contain corn syrup or other cheap fillers
• 3 Tablespoons Salt
• 2 Tablespoons Fast Rise Yeast – check best before date or it won’t work
• 1/3 cup Sunflower Oil
• 8 – 9 cups White Flour
• 3 cups Clean, warm water

If you are just going to make the one batch at camp, it is helpful for packing and keeping the ingredients as clean as possible, if you pre measure everything at home and then pack the powders each in their own clean little containers and place the liquids in clean pop bottles.

OK. You want to start your bread dough early in the day, so that there is plenty of time for you to chase the sunbeams with the bowl of dough to help it rise.

 

First step: wash your hands.

In your big, clean bowl, pour:

Honey, Salt, Yeast, Oil and Warmed Water

Whisk it till it is smooth and bubbly, then let it sit for ten minutes while you make yourself some tea.

Put the tea towel on top of the bowl of dough to keep out the bugs and flying tree bits.

After ten minutes, start whisking the flour into the dough. Do this ONE CUP AT A TIME, because, depending on the atmosphere around you, you probably will not need all of it.

After adding about 4 cups flour, you will notice that the dough is getting thicker and sticky.

This is when you remove the wire whisk and try to scrape all the dough out from between the wires with your very clean finger. Your fingers will get sticky with dough too, so you can just use some of the flour as you would soapy water, to “wash” the sticky dough off your fingers. Allow the rolled up clumps to land in the dough you are working with because they need each other. This is why you make sure your hands are clean before you get started.

At this point, you will begin stirring the rest of the flour in to the dough. When I say “the rest of the flour”‘ I don’t mean “empty the rest of your 8 or 9 cup bag into the dough”, I mean “continue adding the flour, half cup by half cup until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky”. And when I say “stirring”, I mean you can stir either with the wooden spoon or with your strong fist.

Once the dough is no longer all that sticky you can start kneading it, right inside the large bowl. Isn’t that handy?

Depending on the atmosphere, you will be adding a total of anywhere from 6-8 cups flour, the extra cup you packed will be for adding by the handful if, while kneading, you still find sticky parts.

You want the well-kneaded dough to rise in a warm place. On a cloudy day, this might be near your campfire if you can keep your campfire going all day. On a sunny day, you can take your bowl with you to the sunny beach, or you can move it around the shady campsite to wherever the sun is shining its warmest.

Every 1.5 hours you want to punch it down and knead it a little bit, and you want to do this about three times total.

 

Cooking it.

Three ways of cooking it:

1

In a pan:

• With your clean fingers, smear butter on all the walls and floor of your pan.
• Put about half the dough in that pan and set it on the grill on the fire.
• Let it bake for about 20 minutes per side, for a total of about forty minutes.  flipping it periodically to prevent burning.
• When cooked, remove from pan on to cutting board, and either tear off pieces or slice it.
• Top with butter, brown sugar, soft raisins and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

2

With wooden fire poking sticks:

• Roll a generous piece of dough into a python.
• Wrap the python around the clean end of the stick, and then grip it with your hand to squeeze it solid.
• Toast it over the fire, as you would a hotdog or a marshmallow – but for longer.
• When cooked, remove the bread from the stick and fill the hole the stick made with butter, soft raisins, brown sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

3

At home in a normal oven:

• Divide dough into three pieces
• Smear butter inside three loaf pans
• Place a piece of dough in each pan and smear a bit of butter on top, let it sit for 10 to 20 minutes.
• Heat oven to 350
• Bake for about 40 minutes
• Let them cool in pans with oven door open for ten minutes, then turn them out of the pans and let them cool on racks for about an hour before slicing.
• When cooking it at home, you only need to punch it down twice, because the third time puts the dough in the pans.