Simple Bread Recipe?
blacklight
That's when we dream of fresh bread. Is there a simple recipe for
making bread without yeast or baking powder - or a hammer for the end
product? Our only power source is the camp fire.
Thanks for answers - Klaus and Rusty
www.rent-a-cloud.com
(where everything is free)
Dave K
I have a very, very simple bread recipe, but I don't know anything
about making bread using a campfire. Neat idea though. I suppose
you'd have to use something like a dutch oven. I might try this on my
next trip, now that you've given me the idea. :)
The recipe I have is for sourdough. If you don't know already,
"yeast" is actually something that floats in the air. The packaged
yeast you buy is actually dead yeast which attracts live yeast when
used. With this recipe you use a sourdough starter so you basically
are using whatever yeast is floating around.
Hard wheat flour and water are the only ingredients. The recipe calls
for salt too in the actual dough, but I don't really notice much when
I forget it.
The downside is it takes some time. I got the recipe from this book:
http://www.markshep.com/nonviolence/Sourdough.html
But the author is charging for it now. Only $3.00 new and even
cheaper used. Here is the gist of it. The finer points you may
discover by trial and error but I would recommend the book.
Starter
The trick is to get a starter going first. Before you go camping in
your case. You mix a bit of flour with water (gotta be the hard wheat
- not white flour which will just get moldy) and leave it in a warm
place for a few days. Once it starts to smell sour it's ready to
use. You'll be able to use bits of it and keep the rest in the fridge
and refeed it every once and awhile.
Sponge
Once the starter is ready you take some and mix it with about 2 cups
of flour and just enough water for it to be something like pancake
batter. You let that sit overnight. It's basically like the starter,
but since the starter "starts" it doesn't take more than one night.
It will be sour and bubbly the next morning.
Bread
Add about two more cups of flour. You shouldn't need to add more
water. Now it's just the process of kneading and letting it rise,
same as with regular bread. One rising is good enough. I don't
remember what temperature I baked it at in the stove. 250? I'm even
less certain about how to make bread in a campfire, but maybe google
will help us there.
-DaveK
hank kimball
defrost it and let it rise then bake it. Not sure how it would turn
out over a fire. Maybe if wrapped in foil?
NewMan
they are fairly heavy cast iron (at least the good ones are! ;)
You did not mention how you are getting to your destination, nor if
you have excess capacity to carry "stuff".
If you find a dutch oven too heavy, then you might want to look at a
Coleman "Camp Oven":
http://www.coleman.com/coleman/colemancom/detail.asp?product_id=5010D700T&categoryid=27400
This is fairly light weight, and folds down for transport. There is a
diffuser plate in the bottom, so you can place this over a campfire
for heat. Only trick will be that you probably have to have a grate
over the fire, or four rocks to support the corners of the oven so it
is suspended over the fire.
As long as the fire can bring the temperature up to, say, 350 F, then
you should be able to bake bread.
You will need a bread pan. I would recommend one of those Silicon
bread pans for this. They will withstand way more heat that you will
ever generate with a campfire, they are light weight, and they are
absolutely "non-stick" and wont scratch:
http://www.chefsresource.com/silbreadloaf.html
The heat generated by a campfire will very considerably, so you will
have to monitor the heat, and adjust the cooking time accordingly.
Let us know what you decide to do, and how it goes!
:)
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:51:25 -0700 (PDT), blacklight
<con...@rent-a-cloud.com> wrote: