Bannock Bread

[Tired Old Man]

Bannock Bread.

I'm not sure if I did a thread or just a post about this. But here I go again.
I made this once before and it was....OK. So I tried to make it again. Not so great this time. Just didn't cook right.

First try I used 1 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons powered milk, 1 teaspoon baking powered. I did the whole pan cooking. Kind of like a big Bisquick.
Like I said it cooked OK .

This time around I tried 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons baking powder, 1/4 cup butter ( I used oil ) 1 1/2 cups water.
I didn't do the whole pan thing. As you can see this time I made much more than last time. It just didn't cook right even with making small...Bisquick's ?

If anything I noticed my stove isn't level. I'll have to fix that. Bannock bread IMO is kind of like a drop Bisquick.

I guess what I am looking for here is a simply way to make bread ? Hell I would love a butter milk Bisquick as long as you can make it in a frying pan.

Bannock Bread or give me what you have. This is bug out cooking.

[pico]

You could do like the confederate soldiers did during the 'War of Northern Aggression' if you have a bit of bacon or pork, or really any fatty meat and a bit of corn meal or flour. You fry the meat and then when it is done, you eat the meat and dump the corn meal or flour in the grease to make a sort of dough. You then can use a cleaning rod for your firearm, or perhaps a stick, and cook the grease dough by wrapping it around the stick or pole. I have never heard of bannock bread, but need to look into perhaps flat bread as the way to go, as you do not need to have yeast to make the dough rise.

[Tired Old Man]

I want something that wood be easy to cook in a frying pan. The eggs, milk or grease might be hard to get in a SHTF thing.
Pico I just looked at recipes for flat bread. Looks to me like bannock bread is a flat bread. I try this one next.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Flat-Bread

Flour, baking powered and hot water. What could I do wrong......lol

[pico]

Yep... nothing wrong with a KISS recipe for bread. Yes, flat bread is the way to go when times are tough and time is short. I am fixing to pack a canteen of flour into my BOB, and a canteen of corn meal into my wife's bag. I will throw in some desiccant, or perhaps a couple of oxygen absorbers once the canteens are nearly filled. I guess I will need to use these both by March or April or risk the corn meal going bad on me. Anyway, heat, grease, water, and flour/cornmeal makes a handy pancake/flatbeard in an emergency.

[Tired Old Man]

I finished my six day week with 61 hours. Then I remembered I need to level my stove. I found a level and crap. The stove if level. It seems the burners are off level.
I'll have to work on that later on.

So I'm going to try the flat bread. One tablespoon baking powered, two cups flour. Now I know flour can be made from different things in a SHTF event, but where does baking powered come from ? I'll have to look into that.

My next question. How in the hell do I know if the 1 tablespoon baking powered mixed completely with the flour ? It is not like they are different colors and you can see how they mixed. I hate cooking....lol. The hot water part. Crap..... Add hot water until a thick, sticky ball is formed. Is this a dry or wet sticky ball ?
What the hell, go for it. I went with the dry sticky ball .



Hand knead dough, being careful not to over knead.

Right.... Hey I got the golf ball size of dough and flatted it, warming up the frying pan. First try will be in the cast iron pan.

Cook immediately over medium heat or slightly less, flipping once after bubbles rise in dough.

What bubbles ? I never saw any bubbles ! Smoke yes, bubbles, no. Was it eatable ? Is eatable a word ?

Staying on the light to almost brown side. I think I can call it....bread.


Kind of like a pizza crust.

[tahn1000]

umm.... why not just make damper?

[Tired Old Man]

umm.... why not just make damper?

OK , what is damper ?

From two cups flour and 1 tablespoon baking powered I got this. Plus I learned I need an exhaust fan in my kitchen. Too much smoke. Hey I cooked it on lower than medium . I did eat one with peanut butter on it. Not to bad. I still think it is more like a pizza dough. Only fried in a pan.

Man can not live by bread alone.......
Any good man needs woman. To cook the bread. I never know when to shut up....



http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/DSCF0802.jpg

[tahn1000]

traditional damper is cooked in hot coals, so i've never made it myself. but it's flour, water, salt. no rising agent. that's it. just don't make it more than 2 inches thick, according to the info i've read.

[tahn1000]

apparently men can make it though. it was the standard fare of australian stockmen and drovers.

[Tired Old Man]

traditional damper is cooked in hot coals, so i've never made it myself. but it's flour, water, salt. no rising agent. that's it. just don't make it more than 2 inches thick, according to the info i've read.

A Dutch oven ?


apparently men can make it though. it was the standard fare of australian stockmen and drovers.

LMAO. I say this as I eat my flat bread I cooked, with some peanut butter on it. I was kind of hoping I needed a woman for this. I guess I'll just have to go out and kill something.

[tahn1000]

it was cooked in the coals of an open fire. bush camping style.

[Tired Old Man]

it was cooked in the coals of an open fire. bush camping style.


It is late and I am tired. Bush camping style. So many ways I could go with that. : )

I think I found a basic bread.........

[Nu Kua]

Your flat bread looks just like it is supposed to! I used to make that for my kids all the time, especially when we were poor and had little else in the house to eat but flour and water. Make bread, make gravy, dip the bread in the gravy, and call it dinner. :thumbs:
I don't see why you couldn't top it with a little sauce and cheese, slip it under the broiler to melt the cheese and then have a pizza. :)


My next question. How in the hell do I know if the 1 tablespoon baking powered mixed completely with the flour ? It is not like they are different colors and you can see how they mixed.

After you add it, just get something like a hand whisk or a fork and stir it all around until it's impossible it can't be mixed.


I hate cooking....lol. The hot water part. Crap..... Add hot water until a thick, sticky ball is formed. Is this a dry or wet sticky ball ?
What the hell, go for it. I went with the dry sticky ball .

Dry and sticky might be why you didn't get any "bubbles", but if the bread was good then who cares about the bubbles?

[Kiehlroy]

Maybe a bit late but if you want just add a bit of buttermilk powder...

http://shinycooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/dry-buttermilk.jpg

It should last fine unrefrigerated as long as it's kept dry.

Just remember to compensate for the added dry weight it brings.

[Tired Old Man]

I used powered butter milk the first time I tried this. Could be one of the reason it worked good the first time. That and I used a Teflon pan. I need to re-season my cast iron pan. Not big on my list of things to do. I just might work on that tonight.

[Tired Old Man]

Currently trying to re-season my cast iron pan. You tube, gotta love it. I'll let you know how good it works.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13-d2KDjKfc&feature=related

[Tired Old Man]

Still working on seasoning the cast iron pan....

While I haven't perfected a bread recipe yet, I've done more looking into making bread. The main thing I like is Grains seem to store almost for ever. The flour you make from the grains doesn't.

So store the whole grains and make the flour when you need it. Have you looked at hand grinders for making flour ? The only one I saw that looked good was around $500. That's a lot of money....
http://countrylivinggrainmills.com/

If anyone uses a hand operated grain mill, Help !
I would ask is it worth the trouble and money, Hell No! But in a SHTF world it might be.

[pico]

I actually bought a pair of hand grinders for making flour and corn meal... and possibly coffee. They are not great but only set me back around $50 for the pair about a year ago. I do not plan on using them unless TSHTF... so probably next month;)

[Kiehlroy]

I have an old "French"? coffee grinder like this one...
http://www.casualcottagechic.com/cart/images/uploads/deposee%20grinder%20open.JPG

Very simple design. I'm sure anyone worth their salt could fabricate a larger version with just hand tools should they ever get tired of grinding their grain on simple stones.

Mortar and pestle anyone?

http://uncrate.com/p/molcajete-mortar-pestle.jpg

The rougher the better when dealing with the harder grains. :thumbs:

The smoother variety are often essential for many apothecaric designs.

[Tired Old Man]

I'm still looking into this. The lowest price I found for a hand grinder is $100 something. Not that I am a big bread eater but you can make a flour out of all kinds of grains. And most grains seem to last forever. Hell from what I've seen online you can make flour from acorns. But I don't think I want to...lol.

Before I buy a grinder I want to see if I can find whole wheat grain locally . My guess is a feed and farm supply store. This could be an interesting project.

[tahn1000]

just be careful if buying from feed stores. there's diseases which have been deemed "safe" for animals, which would not be rated as safe for human consumption.

[Tired Old Man]

just be careful if buying from feed stores. there's diseases which have been deemed "safe" for animals, which would not be rated as safe for human consumption.

I'll have to look into that. I know you can buy antibiotics from a pet store that says not safe for human consumption . But they are safe to use. As to buying wheat online ? Best I found is $60 something for 45 pounds. I'll bet I could make a lot of bread with that. Granted it might be Bannock bread ( pan cooked ) but it would be food.

[Tired Old Man]

I have to try this one. I don't have any whole wheat flour but I'll see what happens with regular flour. Tomorrow....lol. I'll let you know how it works.
Flour,salt,water,oil. So simply.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD4o_Lmy6bU

[Tired Old Man]

Slow week at work. On the way home I stopped at a animal feed store looking for whole wheat. They had shelled wheat. The name on the bag said re-cleaned wheat.
I ask if it was safe for human consumption. Not according to the USDA was the answer. What the heck, a 50 pound bag was $36. I figured I could at least grow it.
My cats would love that. So I asked, will it grow ? Not guaranteed to grow but it should. Nothing on the label about pesticides.

I opened the bag and spread some of the wheat on a white piece of computer paper. I found a few ( per cup ) of round ( ? ) seeds ? They weren't hard enough to be rocks.
Also not many but a few black specks of.....I don't know but I could guess. After cleaning some I filled two mason jars and filled them with water. Hopefully in a few days I will have sprouts I can plant and grow wheat grass for my cats to eat. Or juice it. I hear it is good for you but I doubt if I will like it.
What else could I try ? I don't have a grinder but I do have a blender. Wheat flour ? It seemed to work. At first it looked like corn meal. Use a spoon to push it back down and blend again. Repeat,repeat,repeat. It looks like flour to me. I just might have to try and make some flat bread with it.

I'm always trying something new. I love it. I'll have to pick up a couple of five gallon buckets to store this in . Or, try and grow it in my garden. If nothing else I'll have some very fat happy birds for my cats to chase.

[Tired Old Man]

Wheat grinding.

If you want to buy a wheat grinder you can spend anywhere from $15 to $500 for a grinder. Most of the grinders under $60 won't make a fine powered flour. After playing around I found an inexpensive way to do it. It is call a flour sifter....lol.

I started out grinding some wheat in a cheap blender. It was anything but a fine powered. After doing some looking online I stopped on the way home today and picked up a few things. A coffee grinder. It really didn't do any better than the blender. Plus the amount you could grind was not enough. I'll clean it you and use it to grind coffee beans. So back to the blender.

On low and using the Frapee setting ( WTF is a Frapee ? ) It will grind 1 1/2 cups of wheat in about 2 minutes. I could hear the motor starting to slow so I figured that would be a good time to stop grinding. From 1 cup of wheat you get about three cups of flour. From that you'll get 1 cup of fine flour after sifting. Return the rough flour back to the blender and this is where the hard part comes in. After a minute it will no longer fall into the blades and grind. You have to shake it or spoon it down or tilt the blender from side to side. I think what I'll try here is save the rough wheat until I have enough to fill the blender. The volume of rough wheat should be enough to avoid shaking it. Granted I'll have to repeat this more than once.

So now I have a question for the cooks out there. The flour that goes through the sifter. Is that considered a fine flour ?
Tonight I will try and make some Banncok Bread with my wheat flour.

[Tired Old Man]

Okay, I tried this.

1 cup flour. 1/4 teaspoon salt, 3 table spoons powered milk, 1 teaspoon baking powered. Only I used 1 cup whole milk. It looked like a soup.


http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/th_100_0044.jpg (http://s527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/?action=view&current=100_0044.jpg)

I had to add another 1/2 cup of my flour. Mixed it up into a dough and put it into the frying pan. Three minutes each side. I don't think it was done, so 2 minutes each side again. Not a great picture but after letting it rest for 10 minutes, NOT BAD.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/th_100_0045.jpg (http://s527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/?action=view&current=100_0045.jpg)

Kind of like a biscuit. I might add some sugar next time. So why am I trying this ? I was looking for an easy to make bread. I also wanted a long term seed / flour I could store. From what I read online wheat is not what I need. Rice works ! Rice bannock bread ? Not laugh but I will try and make flour from rice and turn it into bannock bread.

[Tired Old Man]

Holy Crap. I think I learned how to make sand paper. Mix up some wheat flour in a stainless steel bowl and let it dry over night.
I'll have to get some glass mixing bowls.

[pico]

Haha... or cheap toilet paper.... my wife always buys that John Wayne stuff... "rough, tough, and don't take shit from anyone"

[Tired Old Man]

From sand paper to toilet paper. Not sure if I want to try that.....lol.
So far so good with playing with the wheat. I made flour, and IT GROWS !
I soaked the wheat over night then drained the water from the jar. It says to let the wheat sprout in the jar, why ? All I did was spread the wheat on the potting soil. I did cover with a towel but that started some mold to grow. Removed the towel and place the trays under my coffee table. I think the mold is starting to go away.
If nothing else in a couple more weeks my cats should love it.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/wheatgrass.jpg

[Tired Old Man]

I ordered a Victorio hand operated grinder last weekend. I'll be damn I got it today. I hope I never need this thing. But if the power goes out I'll still be able to grind flour.
Now as to the Victorio grinder. Whole wheat is slow to grind. And a lot of work. No wonder pioneer women had big arms .
Was it worth the $60 ? That depends on if I ever really need it. For now my blender works great for making flour.

Give me some time and I'll let you know how the blender and the Victorio grinder works on making rice flour.

Tonight I think I'll try and make some biscuits. It calls for two cups of flour. 1 all purpose and 1 wheat. I think I'll try 2 cups wheat. For power outage I could look into a Dutch oven or make an oven that would work over a open fire or my rocket stove. That or stay with the Bannock bread and use a frying pan. I need more time off from work to play : ))

[Tired Old Man]

Lets see what happened. Biscuits !

The recipe called for 1 cup all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. I went with two cups whole wheat flour.
It also called for 1 cup milk stirred in until moist. I just dumped the whole cup in. That was a mistake.
I used the all purpose flour kneading the dough until I could roll it.

I kind of let the dough rest for 20 minutes because I had to answer the phone.........
Cook until lightly brown. It must be the flour, but they didn't look done. Three more minutes....
Okay it still didn't look lightly brown. Three more minutes and that's it.....lol.
It must be the all purpose flour I rolled it in. The bottoms are lightly brown.
I'll let them cool then try one. Holy crap I think I made bread.

Nothing like a biscuit. The outside is a little crisp. The inside is more like bread than a biscuit.
If you like wheat bread this tasted almost the same.

Rice flour is next...........

[Nu Kua]

Holy Crap. I think I learned how to make sand paper. Mix up some wheat flour in a stainless steel bowl and let it dry over night.
I'll have to get some glass mixing bowls.

lmao! Hey you can also make mortar from grits!

Oh and about whole wheat flour- if you didn't like the texture of your biscuits, try mixing it about half-half with white flour.

[Tired Old Man]

I had a easy day at work today. Eight hours. So I stopped on the way home and bought some Samuel Adams beer. Boston Lager and a pound of extra long grain white rice. I should be learning how to make beer instead of flour......

I put the rice though my Hamilton Beach blender and was amassed how it fell back down upon itself. I liked that. Unlike the wheat It didn't form a open tunnel. It just fell back down into the blades. Sad to say even after using the sifter my rice flour was about the same size as salt. I'm trying to make a fine flour here......
So I took out the hand operated Victorio grain mill. AND.... I learned a few things. If it is to hard to turn your doing something wrong. If your not getting flour out as you turn it, your doing something wrong. Granted it is still slow as hell to use. But it will make a very fine flour.

So where am I at today ? Wheat doesn't have the shelf life I thought it had. Rice will last almost forever. I can use rice to make a flour. Lucky me I can store a boat load of rice. I wonder how hard it is to grow ?

As to the Victorio grain mill, it is like any other tool. Learn how to use it. Like I said , slow as hell. But it works.

[pico]

You should be learning about home fermentation, as you can make your own beer for far less than the store bought stuff. I use the kits all of the time, and have really liked my own added bits I throw in for good measure. I can make a 5 gallon batch in about 30 minutes, and you can use leftover 2 liter soda bottles in place of high end bottling setups. A good batch of dark hopped ale will take about 2-3 weeks to ferment, and about that long to properly condition and carbonate once bottled, but if you make a few batches, you can have a pretty steady supply. In fact, I only go buy beer when I want a real Irish draught... can't seem to make the Irish type the same as they do over in Dublin.

I ordered some indian corn for a place on the side of my property away from where I plan to plant my corn for eating on the cob. I hope to be able to use this tougher stuff in my grain mill, and will hopefully be getting some decent corn meal as a result.

[Tired Old Man]

I think I might have found a keeper recipe. Having made a rice flour I thought about making pancakes instead of a bread.
Please remember I am not a cook.....lol. From the reviews online this would be more of a crepe like pancake.
As to the batter, I recomend remixing it each time before pouring.

I think I poured mine a little to thick. I only got four pancakes. I should have got 12. What I liked about this.
Even plain it tasted good. They could be used as a "roll" , if that's the right word.
Place some left over food on one and roll it. Enjoy . Here is the link.

http://yummysupper.blogspot.com/2011/04/rice-flour-pancakes.html

[Tired Old Man]

I had been talking to my daughter about wheat seeds. Like I said if nothing else I could grow wheat grass for the cats to eat. Damn is that grass growing. I mentioned something about making wheat grass juice. One things leads to another...

Seems a coworker of hers drinks wheat grass juice. Only he buys it instead of making his own. Now he wants some seeds to try and grow his own. I can understand why...
My daughter brought me a one ounce shoot of wheat grass juice today. And yes it tasted like grass. What the hell I chased it down with some beer. But it keeps coming back every time I burp..lol.

Now the cost. My daughter paid $3 a ounce. So I had to look it up online. Anywhere from $1.89 to $2 + an once. I may just plant my whole yard and juice it.

[Tired Old Man]

This was interesting. I cut my wheatgrass and juiced it.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/th_wheartgrass.jpg (http://s527.photobucket.com/albums/cc352/TiredOldMan1955/?action=view&current=wheartgrass.jpg)


Seems like a lot of worked to me.........