There are two main types of breads that you can make. Quick breads and yeast breads. Quick breads use a the chemical reaction in baking powder to produce carbon dioxide pockets and yeast bread use a living organism, yeast, to produce the carbon dioxide. Quick breads are much easier and faster to produce, yeast breads have more rising power, but are slower. Cakes and muffins are almost always quick breads and rolls and loafs of bread are almost always yeast breads. If you are new to baking in the backcountry, start with quick breads. That is what I use 90% of the time because of much faster they are to get your food cooked.
Quick Breads
Quick breads can vary from savory jalapeño cheese bread to sweet cakes. You can get pre-preped, just add water muffin mixes and cornbreads that take out all the guess work. Or you can use Bisquick, the gluten free alternative Pamela’s Baking and Pancake mix or Bob’s Red Mill gluten free baking mix and add your own ingredients to suit your desires. See my suggestions below.
How much do I make at one time?
That depends on your pot size. My larger dry baking pot holds about 2 1/2 cups water. In that pan I can easily use a cup of dry baking mix with an additional 1/2 cup of added ingredients. In my smaller dry bake cup it only holds about 1 1/2 cups of water, so I usually use 1/2 cup of dry baking mix with 1/4 cup of added goodies. If you use the boil bake method, you can get the larger amount above in a quart size ziplock.
Savory Recipe Ideas (For all recipes below use the amounts shown for each 1/2 cup baking mix)
Cheese bread: Double the baking mix, 1/4 cup course cut or shredded cheese, 1/4 cup bacon, 1/2 tsp dried jalapeños if desired. Mix all ingredients together with baking mix and add enough water to make a very thick batter.
Pesto rolls: 1/4 cup dried pesto, 1/4 cup parmesan, 2 Tbls crushed walnuts if desired. Add 2 Tbls water to the pesto to rehydrate. Add just enough water to the baking mix to make a dough. Roll out the dough on a piece of parchment paper or a ripped open plastic bag so you have a rectangle. Add pesto, parmesan and walnuts on top and roll up the dough. Cut into slices and add to pan.
Bread: Double the baking mix and bake as is! If you just want some fresh baked bread to go with dinner, this is a great option.
Pizza: 1/4 cup marinara sauce powder, 1/4 cup shredded cheese, 1/4 cup pepperoni slices. Add just enough water to make a thick paste with the marinara powder. Add just enough water to the baking mix to make a dough. Finger press in the dough to the bottom and up the sides of the pot. Add into pot layers of the ingredients, sauce, cheese pepperoni, repeat until full.
Frittata: 1/2 cup powdered egg, 1/4 cup dried vegetable/chickenish bits, 1/4 cup parmesan.
Sweet Recipe Ideas (For all recipes below use the amounts shown for each 1/2 cup baking mix)
Cinnamon Rolls: Same as pesto rolls above, but instead of pesto and parmesan, use 2 Tbls brown sugar, 2 Tbls butter, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 Tbls raisins, 1 Tbls chopped walnuts.
Apple spice bread: 1/2 cup of baking mix, 1/4 cup dried apples, 2 Tbls brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp allspice, 1/8 tsp nutmeg.
Muffins: Get any instant muffin mix from the store and use 1 cup of the mix.
Fruit cobbler: 1/2 cup of your choice of dried fruit(apples, peaches, blackberries, 1 cup fresh huckleberries?), 2 Tbls brown sugar. Use only 1/4 cup baking mix and add 1 Tbls oatmeal, 1 Tbls brown sugar and 1 Tbls butter. Put fruit and sugar in one bag and baking mix, oatmeal and butter in another bag. Put fruit bag with 1/2 cup water in pan. Add water to the topping mix to make it a thick biscuit batter. Put the oatmeal and baking mix on top of the fruit. Bake until you can’t stand the smell anymore. 🙂
Want to see it in action? Go check out my YouTube playlist of baking videos.
Try out these techniques and recipes at home first. You want to work out the kinks before you are in the woods.
Eat Well!
Dustin