“Bannock”; it’s not just a made-up word that shows up as a stumbling block in a sixth-grade spelling bee. It’s the original North American camping bread with heritage attributed to native northern tribes such as the Nunavut and the Cree.

Bannock ingredients are simple and exceedingly portable. It can be quickly prepared in camp and cooked over an open fire by any of several methods. It’s not a high-rise yeast bread, but acquires some loft usually from a chemical leavening.

Recipes for mixing up a batch of bannock are pretty standard. Flour, salt, and baking powder are the universal dry ingredients. Some recipes add a little bit of sugar and/or powdered milk. Also required are a bit of shortening and some water. The recipe that follows provides basic proportions, but experiment until you find what works just right for you.

For camping trips…whether deep into the wilderness or a few feet from your car… you can premix the dry ingredients in proper proportions and store it in zippered plastic bags. If you don’t put too many miles on them before you use them, these bags can serve as mixing vessels for your bannock dough as well.

Most traditionally, bannock is made plain and served alongside wild game meats or other foods foraged along the route or near camp. However, it’s natural for adding a bit of sweetness by including a handful of raisins, dried cranberries or even fresh blueberries in the dough. Butter, honey, and jam all go great on bannock.

Three ways to cook bannock

Bannocks biggest controversy is in the “authentic” way to cook it over a campfire. There are three basic options. If I have the luxury of a cast iron skillet (here’s our favorite) and a little oil, my favorite way of preparing bannock is rolling the dough into discs just thicker than ½-inch and frying it to a golden brown. You can also sort of bake it in the skillet using reflected heat, which is slow, but works pretty well and gives you more of a rise on the loaf. Also – when it comes time to clean that skillet, here’s the best way to do it.

However, if you’re working from a pack on your back, cast iron’s too damn heavy to tote. So, you can either form a loaf and bake it in several layers of aluminum foil on the low heat of old coals (or buried in a pit of coals) or you can form long strips of dough about 3/8 of an inch thick and an inch wide and wrap them around the end of a green stick. You then carefully bake the dough over the coals and low flame much like you’re toasting a marshmallow.

Bannock is storied as the preferred camping bread of famous folks like Lewis & Clark, Kit Carson, Daniel Boone and many others, so next time you’re looking to mix a history lesson with your camping trip, whip up some bannock to go along with your beans…the whole crew will be glad you did.

If you’re into bannock, you probably practice a whole slew of outdoor skills and should check out the new full tang Morakniv Bushcraft. 

Photo courtesy of Dan McKay.