Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Actually, since you bake your own bread, I don't suppose this would interest you, @Bear Ribs?
See here for the actual recipe on his website.
While I'm not a big baker myself (apart from a few experiments here and there), I can definitely sympathize with Jack's unwillingness to deal with all the discard buildup.
I'll take a look later and see. I don't typically have a problem with discard as I just fry it up every day but perhaps there's a better recipe there.
But for now, Imma talk about another bread recipe that's near and dear to my heart.
It's exceedingly simple:
4 Cups flour (most flours will work but avoid self-rising, whole wheat flour is traditional)
2 Cups of water
1 Tablespoon of salt
Whisk the flour and salt, then add water slowly, mixing it well. The entire magic of this recipe is in getting the right consistency, stop adding water and soon as it comes together. There should be absolutely no powder to it but the ball of dough should also not be sticky or runny. Do not grease your tools, do not grease your cookie sheet, no grease whatsoever. Fats of any kind are your enemy.
Roll it out into a sheet no more than half an inch thick, no less than a quarter inch. A third of an inch or three-eighths are both considered ideal. Depending on what tradition you follow, form it into either squares or rounds, either way aiming for around 3 inch sections. Rounds are the British way while squares are American. Poke an even grid of holes in it (about 16 holes in a 3-inch block) with a nail or chopstick, a fork will work but bigger holes give better results and a nail is traditional. Don't fold the dough, you want a single solid layer here.
The holes both allow it to bake more evenly without rising and make it easier to break into pieces along the holes.
Some recipes for this wondrous dish leave the salt out. This is a bad idea, the reason it was done was because in the olden days, salt was expensive but you want its preservative effects here. Without the sat it will barely last a year or two and still be edible, instead of centuries.
Bake your blocks of dough, half an hour on each side at 375 degrees. It should be just lightly brown on each side and hard as stone.
You have just made the real-life equivalent of lembas bread and cram rations, a food that can keep in a bugout bag or on your pantry shelf forever:
Hardtack
Hardtack will keep indefinitely just wrapped up in a bandana, as long as it doesn't get wet. It was taken on ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean as both bread and flour would be ruined by the duration of the trip while hard tack endured forever. It's the original MRE which continues to be a favorite because it lasts for an eternity. Don't believe me?
Leftover hardtack from the Civil War is still edible...
Assuming you used all-purpose flour, each square is going to be about 2.5 ounces and carry with it 250 calories. Whole wheat flour reduces the calorie count but has significantly more protein and vitamin content, in general I'd go with that and it was what was traditionally used. Either way at current prices each batch should run you a bit over a dollar by my reckoning. Ten 3" squares of hardtack was considered a solid day's rations for a soldier in the civil war.
How do you eat it? Well, you don't chew the stuff, the word "Hard" is in no manner ironic here, you can and will break your teeth on it. The traditional means of eating hardtack is to soak it in coffee, wine, brandy, tea, grog, porridge, or soup to soften it up first. And I do emphasize soak, this is incredibly dense stuff and just dipping it won't work. The traditional method of breakfast in the civil war was to drop a square in your cup of hot coffee and by the time you were done drinking the coffee, the hard tack would be soft enough to chew. Another way it was eaten in the Civil War was skillygalee, a term meaning "autocorrect will hate this word in a hundred and fifty years." To make skillygalee, they would soak the hard tack in cold water for ten minutes, then fry it in bacon grease and eat the hard tack and bacon together. Sometimes hard tack was broken into pieces and cooked into soup. In a pinch, you can just break it into pieces and suck on them long enough for your saliva to work... which could take a bit but is a viable option when you're on the go. That said... it's also not recommended, hardtack is not something you make because it's a delicious treat, it's made because it will keep forever. Bringing something along like bacon jam to put on it, eating straight hardtack is a sure morale crusher.
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