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Buckwheat
Cakes
(1)
Quart of buckwheat flour, (1) gill of wheat flour,
(1) quart - less (1) gill of warm water, (1) gill of
yeast, (2) teaspoonfuls of salt. Mix the batter at
night in order to have the cakes for breakfast; if
very light, an hour before they are required stir
the batter down and let it rise again. Bake the
cakes on a smooth, nicely-greased griddle and send
them to the table the moment they are baked, piled
regularly in the middle of the plate. Left over
batter will serve as yeast for the next baking;
store in a cool place, but don’t let it freeze if
in a winter camp. Bring it out at night, add
buckwheat, etc., and leave it to rise. With a little
care no fresh yeast will be necessary for the
winter.
Recipe
origin is unknown. 18xx ?
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Camp
Bread
Below
is a recipe from an 18th century cookbook for
Keepsake Biscuits. KS biscuits were intended to keep
long enough to provide bread for the extended
journeys of the time. I have kept KS biscuits for
several weeks but after the first day or so they are
better if they are heated over a fire. They can also
be broken into chunks the size of the last joint of
your thumb and cooked with meat for dumplings or
cooked with fruit for a cobbler.
It
is unlikely that even one KS biscuit ever got baked
in the rocky mountains but it is remotely possible
that someone fresh from his mama's kitchen could
have hauled some a couple of thousand miles to the
mountains. Let your conscience be your guide.
Regular
biscuits are very easy. Mix about 1/2 cup of any
liquid fat...bacon
Grease,
melted lard, butter, cooking oil... with about 1 1/4
cups liquid...water,
Milk,
beer... and add to about 3 cups self-rising flour
and stir into a damp dough. Pinch into balls about
the size of golf balls and flatten between your
palms. Cook them any way you want...in a Dutch oven
if you brought such a thing to the mountains, in a
skillet over a slow fire (turning as needed), in a
skillet inclined before a fire (turning as needed),
or even on a flat rock before the fire. They can
even be cooked in a regular house oven at 400
degrees for about 10-12 minutes.
A
rope of dough can be curled around a stick and
toasted over the fire but I have never had very good
luck with this method...making the rope not much
bigger than a pencil might help. Somebody help me on
this.
I
hope this helps.
Lanney
Ratcliff, expert biscuit chef
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Bannock
This
bannock recipe makes up a batch of bannock for 24
persons.
Ingredients
6-1/4 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons salt 1/4
cup baking powder 1/2 cup and 1 teaspoon butter,
melted 3 cups and 2 tablespoons water.
Directions:
#1
Measure flour, salt, and baking powder into a large
bowl. Stir to mix. Pour melted butter and water over
flour mixture. Stir with fork to make a ball.
#2
Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface, and
knead gently about 10 times. Pat into a flat circle
3/4 to 1 inch thick.
#3
Cook in a greased frying pan over medium heat,
allowing about 15 minutes for each side. Use two
lifters for easy turning.
The
word 'bannock' referred originally to a round
unleavened piece of dough, usually about the size of
a meat plate, which was baked on the girdle and used
by the oven-less Scots/Irish workers.
Concho
Smith “The bannock man”
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