Recipe: Bannock and Damper (baked in oven, on stove top, or open fire)

BANNOCK AND DAMPER

"In North America, campfire bread - wheat flour, leavened with baking powder, enriched with lard for warmth - is called bannock. In Australia, it's known as damper. Damper has been tamed over the years, and is now more often made there in home ovens and leavened with baking powder. But in the early days of European settlement in Australia, it was as bare and spare a form of bread as you could get, made by "swagmen" on an open fire and eaten with tea cooked in a "billy." In the aboriginal culture section of the museum in Adelaide, several displays mention that the aboriginal people used to make damper out of rush millet ground to a coarse flour, then moistened into a dough, and cooked over a fire.

Here's a basic campfire bread - call it bannock or damper, or quick bread, as you please. It can be baked in the oven or cooked on a stove top or over a fire. It has plenty of lard (or other fat) in it for warmth, necessary calories for people working hard and living out-of-doors most of the time."

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 to 1/3 cup lard, or 4 to 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons for greasing the pan
About 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

(If baking in the oven, place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.)

Put the flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and stir to mix. Add the lard or butter and cut in. Make a well in the center and pour in the water, mixing as you do. Continue to stir until all the flour is moistened, turning and folding the dough to make sure it's well mixed.

Heat an ovenproof cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of lard or butter. When the fat has melted, transfer the dough to the pan. Wet your hands and pat the batter out to flatten it and fill the skillet.

Choose a baking method:

To oven-bake the bread:
Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and bake until lightly touched with brown, and the center feels firm when pressed with your fingers, about 25 minutes.

To bake on the stove top:
Cover tightly with a heavy lid, lower the heat to medium, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove the lid, turn the bread over (use the lid to help flip the bread over), cover, and cook until the second side is browned and the bread is cooked through: Stick a sharp knife or a skewer into the center of the bread - it should come out clean.

To cook the bread over an open fire:
You'll need a cast-iron skillet. Follow the stove-top directions, but in addition, you'll need to keep moving the skillet on the fire so that the bread cooks evenly.

TO SERVE:
Transfer to a rack to cool. Cut the bread into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature for breakfast, or to accompany any meal.

Makes 1 large, round, oven- or stove-top-baked, low-rise quick bread
Source: Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid